Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 11 South and East Asia, Africa and the Americas (1600-1700) (History of Christian-Muslim Relations) 9004326839, 9789004326835

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History, Volume 11 (CMR 11) covering South and East Asia, Africa and the A

1,489 171 6MB

English Pages 656 [657] Year 2016

Report DMCA / Copyright

DOWNLOAD FILE

Polecaj historie

Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 11 South and East Asia, Africa and the Americas (1600-1700) (History of Christian-Muslim Relations)
 9004326839, 9789004326835

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Abbreviations
Introduction: Christian-Muslim Relations in the 17th Century (Asia, Africa and the Americas)
Islam and Christianity in South-East Asia 1600-1700
Enforced migration: an Indian Ocean Africa narrative
Enforced migration: an Atlantic narrative in Christian-Muslim relations
Works on Christian-Muslim relations 1600-1700
South Asia
South-East Asia, China and Japan
Africa and the Americas
Index of Names
Index of Titles

Citation preview

Christian-Muslim Relations A Bibliographical History

History of Christian-Muslim Relations Editorial Board Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham) Sandra Toenies Keating (Providence College) Tarif Khalidi (American University of Beirut) Suleiman Mourad (Smith College) Gabriel Said Reynolds (University of Notre Dame) Mark Swanson (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago) David Thomas (University of Birmingham)

Volume 33

Christians and Muslims have been involved in exchanges over matters of faith and morality since the founding of Islam. Attitudes between the faiths today are deeply coloured by the legacy of past encounters, and often preserve centuries-old negative views. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, Texts and Studies presents the surviving record of past encounters in a variety of forms: authoritative, text editions and annotated translations, studies of authors and their works and collections of essays on particular themes and historical periods. It illustrates the development in mutual perceptions as these are contained in surviving Christian and Muslim writings, and makes available the arguments and rhetorical strategies that, for good or for ill, have left their mark on attitudes today. The series casts light on a history marked by intellectual creativity and occasional breakthroughs in communication, although, on the whole beset by misunderstanding and misrepresentation. By making this history better known, the series seeks to contribute to improved recognition between Christians and Muslims in the future. A number of volumes of the History of Christian-Muslim Relations series are published within the subseries Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History.

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hcmr

Christian-Muslim Relations A Bibliographical History Volume 11. South and East Asia, Africa and the Americas (1600-1700) Edited by David Thomas and John Chesworth with Clinton Bennett, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, Stanisław Grodź, Douglas Pratt

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2017

Cover illustration: Portrait of a Jesuit Priest, attributed to the Mughal court painter Kesu Das, c. 1600. CBL In44.5 © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Christian Muslim relations : a bibliographical history / Edited by David Thomas and John Chesworth with Clinton Bennett, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, Stanisław Grodź and Douglas Pratt.   p. cm. — (The history of Christian-Muslim relations, ISSN 1570-7350 ; v. 33)  Includes index.  ISBN 9789004326835 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Christianity and other religions— Islam. 2. Islam—Relations—Christianity. 3. Christianity and other religions—Islam— Bibliography. 4. Islam—Relations—Christianity—Bibliography.  BP172.C4196 2009  016.2612’7—dc22 2009029184

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/ brill-typeface. ISSN 1570-7350 ISBN 978-90-04-32683-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-33558-5 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

CONTENTS Foreword ........................................................................................................ vii List of Illustrations ....................................................................................... xi List of Maps .................................................................................................... xiii Abbreviations ................................................................................................ xiv Peter Riddell, Introduction: Christian-Muslim Relations in the 17th Century (Asia, Africa and the Americas) ..................................... 1 Barbara Watson Andaya, Islam and Christianity in South-East Asia 1600-1700 ..................................................................................................... 15 Martha Frederiks, Enforced migration: an Indian Ocean Africa narrative ..................................................................................................... 29 David D. Grafton, Enforced migration: an Atlantic narrative in Christian-Muslim relations .................................................................... 49 Works on Christian-Muslim relations 1600-1700 ................................. 69 South Asia ....................................................................................................... 71 South-East Asia, China and Japan ........................................................... 269 Africa and the Americas ............................................................................. 467 Index of Names ............................................................................................. 623 Index of Titles ................................................................................................ 632

FOREWORD David Thomas This volume of Christian-Muslim relations. A bibliographical history (CMR 11) is one of the four that make up the history of relations between Christians and Muslims in the period 1600-1700 according to the original sources. CMR 11 focuses on works from South Asia, South-East Asia, China and Japan, Africa south of the Sahara and the Americas. They were all written by authors who professed Christianity or Islam, accepted the teachings of one or other faith and generally expressed the attitudes that emanated from them. They show that prejudices known from earlier times continued as integral elements in relations (even in such unexpected settings as the rarefied debates over calendar differences between Muslim and Christian astronomers in the Chinese imperial court), and that followers of the two faiths so fully presumed that the other was wrong, wicked or morally corrupt that they surprised themselves when they witnessed rare acts of kindness or civilised behaviour. On the Christian side, encounters through trade, diplomacy, missions and the accounts of travellers provided fuller knowledge about Muslims and their ways, though these rarely weakened ingrained assumptions about the errors of Muslim beliefs and the damnability of their origins in an accursed founder and counterfeit scripture. On the Muslim side, attitudes derived from the Qur’an and early writings that Christians had deviated from the truth were now qualified by experiences of European Christian ferocity in the search for land to conquer and obsessiveness in the hunt for spices and other goods to send home. The intention of this volume is to provide full accounts of all the known works written by Christians and Muslims about one another and against one another in this period and from these parts of the world. As in earlier volumes, the editors have been generously assisted by new and established scholars, who have written at length and in detail and have endured numerous editorial questions about their entries to produce a compilation that reflects the latest research and in some instances takes it forward to beyond what was previously known. This is especially true for entries concerning works from China, South-East Asia and southern Africa.

viii

FOREWORD

Like its predecessors, CMR 11 starts with introductory essays that treat details of the political and religious situation in the 17th century world in which the works concerned with Christian-Muslim relations were written. Following these come the entries that make up the bulk of the volume. The basic criterion has been to choose works written substantially about or against the other faith, or containing significant information or judgements that cast light on attitudes of one faith towards the other. Thus, by their very nature, apologetic and polemical works are included, while letters, religious treatises and works of travel and history also usually qualify. Everything has been included that is thought to contribute in any substantial way towards building the impressions about the other that were harboured by the followers of the two faiths. This principle criterion is easily applicable in many cases, though it proves difficult in a significant number of instances (among them accounts by Portuguese and Spanish governors in India about political manoeuvrings among local Muslim princes, where religion often appears peripheral). An inclusive approach has therefore been adopted, especially with respect to works that may contain only small though insightful details, or only appear to touch obliquely on relations. Another criterion is that inclusion of works within this volume, like its predecessors, has been decided according to the date of their author’s death, not the date when the works themselves appeared. The adoption of this approach has led to evident anomalies at either end, where authors were mainly or almost entirely active in one century but did not die until the beginning of the next. Although this may seem arbitrary, so in many instances would the choice of any other criterion. Each entry is divided into two main parts. The first is concerned with the author, and it contains basic biographical details, an account of their main intellectual activities and writings, the major primary sources of information about them, and the latest scholarly works on them. A small number of entries are concerned with groups of authors or works, in which case they are situated in their place and time as appropriate. Without aiming to be exhaustive in biographical detail or scholarly study, this section contains sufficient information for readers to pursue further points about each author and their general activities. The second part of the entry is concerned with the works of the author that are specifically devoted to the other faith. Here the aim is completeness. A work is named and dated (where possible), and then in two important sections its contents are described and its significance



FOREWORD

ix

in the history of Christian-Muslim relations is appraised, including its influence on later works. There follow sections listing publication details (manuscripts where known, and then editions and translations) and studies, both intended to be fully up to date at the time of going to press. With this coverage, CMR 11 provides sufficient information to enable a work to be identified, its importance appreciated, and editions and studies located. Each work is also placed as far as is possible together with other works from the same region written at the same time, though this grouping should be regarded as more a matter of organisational convenience than anything else. Proximity between works in the bibliography is definitely not an indication of any necessary direct relationship between them, let alone influence (though this may sometimes be discernible). In this period, it is as likely that an author would be influenced by a work written hundreds of miles away or hundreds of years before as by another from their immediate locality or time. The composition of CMR 11 has involved numerous contributors, who have readily and often enthusiastically agreed to write entries. Under the direction of David Thomas, the work for this volume was led by John Chesworth (Research Officer), Emma Gaze Loghin (Research Associate), Sinéad Cussen (Project Assistant), all in the Birmingham office, Jaco Beyers (Southern and Eastern Africa), Martha Frederiks (West Africa), Alan Guenther and Gordon Nickel (South Asia), and Douglas Pratt and Peter Riddell (East Asia and South-East Asia). These are members of a much larger team that comprises 25 specialists in total, covering all parts of the world. Many other scholars from various countries devoted their expertise, energy and time to identifying relevant material in their specialist areas, finding contributors and sharing their expertise. Without their help and interest, the task of assembling the material in this volume would have been much more difficult, if possible at all. Among many others, special gratitude goes to Leonardo Cohen, Isaac Donoso and James Harry Morris. In addition, Carol Rowe copy edited the entire volume, Phyllis Chesworth compiled the indexes, Louise Buglass prepared the maps, and Alex Mallett provided links with the staff editors at Brill. The CMR team are deeply indebted to everyone who has contributed in any way. The project is funded by a grant made by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain, and this is acknowledged with gratitude. Extensive efforts have been made to ensure the information in the volume is both accurate and complete, though in a project that crosses as many geographical as disciplinary boundaries as this it would be both

x

FOREWORD

presumptuous and unrealistic to claim that these have always succeeded. Details (hopefully only minor) must have been overlooked, authors and works have maybe been ignored, new works will have come to light, new editions, translations and studies will have appeared, and new dates and interpretations put forward. Corrections, additions and updates are therefore warmly invited. They will be incorporated into the online version of CMR, and into any further editions. Please send details of these to David Thomas at [email protected].

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1

The Emperor Akbar with Jesuits at the ʿibādat-khāna, from Abū l-Faz̤l Akbarnāma (painting attributed to Narsingh Mughal) c. 1600. © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. 03.263 .......................................................... 97 2 Celebrations for the accession of the Emperor Jahāngīr, with a Jesuit priest in the crowd (by Abū l-Ḥasan), from the St Petersburg Muraqqa E-14, Plate 176, fol. 21r. Courtesy of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg ............................................... 137 3 The Emperor Jahāngīr showing preference to a Sufi over Ottoman and English ambassadors (painting by Bichitr) c. 1615-18, from the St Petersburg Album. © Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC: purchase, F1942.15a ..................................... 165 4 The signet of the Emperor Jahāngīr, from Edward Terry, A voyage to East India, 1655. © The British Library Board, Thomason / 204:E.1614 ....................................................................... 227 5 View of Mokha from Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historiael, 1616 (image by Adriaen Matham). Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, RP-P-0B-75.460 ......................................................... 234 6 Shāh Jahān on a progress, from The travels of Peter Mundy (1608-67), vol. 2, p. 194 (sketch by Peter Mundy). Digital image courtesy of Wellesley College, Wellesley MA .................. 265 7 Annotated view of the town of Gammelamme on the island of Ternate, from Journael oft Dagh-register, 1601, p. 40 .............. 283 8 Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi, from Toonneel van China, 1668, plate facing p. 138 (Dutch translation of Athanasius Kircher, China illustrata, trans. J.H. Glazemaaker). Courtesy of the Jesuit Collection, Maastricht University Library MU RAB 014 ............ 302 9 View of Batavia from Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historial, 1616 (image by Adriaen Matham). Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-75.467 ................................ 346 10 The conquest of Makassar by Cornelis Janszoon Speelman from 1666 to 1669 (engraving by Romeyn de Hooge). Courtesy of the National Archives of the Netherlands, Kaartcollectie Buitenland Leupe, VELH0619.68 ......................... 405

xii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

11 Frontispiece of Philippe Avril, Voyage en divers états d’Europe et en Asie. Courtesy of SUB Göttingen, 8 ITIN I, 2008 ................ 452 12 Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī, Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd. Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library, Timbuktu, Mali ..................................................................................... 485 13 Map of the island of Mombasa showing the town and fortifications, from Pedro Barretto de Resende, Livro do Estado de India Oriental, 1635. © The British Library Board, Sloane 197.fol.100 .................................................................................. 553 14 Frontispiece to Jeronimo Lobo, Relation historique d’Abbysinie. Courtesy of the Saint John’s Rare Books Collection, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, Saint John’s University, Collegeville MN, DT376.L75 1728a ................................................... 590

LIST OF MAPS 1 Indian Ocean littoral .......................................................................... 72 2 South-East Asia .................................................................................... 271 3 Eastern China ....................................................................................... 272 4 West Africa ............................................................................................ 468

ABBREVIATIONS BL British Library BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies ECCO Eighteenth Century Collections Online; http://find.galegroup.com/ ecco/dispBasicSearch.do EEB Early European Books; http://eeb.chadwyck.com/home.do EEBO Early English Books Online; http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition EI3 Encyclopaedia of Islam Three ESTC English Short Title Catalogue; http://estc.bl.uk ICMR Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society MW The Muslim World Q Qur’an STC A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave (eds), A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland & Ireland and of English books printed abroad, 1475-1640, London, 1926 VOC  Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company)



ABBREVIATIONS

xv

Wing D.G. Wing, Short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of English books printed in other countries, 1641-1700, New York, 1945-51

Introduction: Christian-Muslim Relations in the 17th Century (Asia, Africa and the Americas) Peter Riddell The 16th century added a new dimension to Christian-Muslim interaction, with the Islamic domains being consolidated beyond the Islamic heartlands of the Middle East and North Africa, while Portugal and Spain greatly expanded their presence in Asia and the Americas. The 17th century was to witness the advance of European colonial powers, bringing Christians into greater contact with Muslim communities in diverse new locations. Developments in Muslim communities In India, the Mughal Empire continued to flourish throughout the 17th century. The Emperor Akbar, arguably its greatest ruler, died in 1605 and was succeeded by his son Jahāngīr (r. 1605-27). It was during the latter’s reign that relations were first established with the emerging British East India Company, thereby forging a link that was to bind India and Britain together for centuries to come. In turn, Jahāngīr was succeeded by his son Shāh Jahān (r. 1627-58), during whose rule the famous Tāj Mahāl was built. In 1658, Shāh Jahān was deposed by his son Aurangzeb, who ruled the Mughal Empire for a lengthy period of 45 years and promoted a somewhat narrower and more literalist approach to Islam than had his great-grandfather Akbar.1 Further east, Islam was being expanded and consolidated throughout the Malay-Indonesian archipelago. At the turn of the 17th century, the Makassarese kingdom of Gowa accepted Islam as the state religion and engaged in mission in neighbouring regions. This was to bring it into conflict with the newly arrived Dutch East India Company (VOC), which sought to establish itself in the spice trade. This was also the period of the rise of the Sultanate of Aceh under its dynamic ruler Sultan Iskandar Muda (r. 1607-36). During his first 20 years of rule, he embarked on a 1 For a comprehensive and very readable treatment of the Mughals, see A. Eraly, Emperors of the Peacock Throne. The saga of the Great Mughals, New Delhi, 2000.

2

introduction

series of military campaigns on the island of Sumatra and in the neighbouring Malay Peninsula, which established Aceh as the predominant power in the region, alongside Portuguese Malacca. This imperial expansion by Aceh was only blunted with the disastrous failed attack on Malacca in 1629.2 Nevertheless, Aceh remained a formidable presence throughout the 17th century, a fact recognised by the European colonial powers. The forward movement of European colonial powers In the 17th century, the Portuguese and Spanish continued their colonial expansion from the previous century with accompanying mission activity. The dynastic union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain between 1580 and 1640 meant that the two colonial enterprises worked in tandem to some extent. Meanwhile, the Dutch and English pursued their own separate colonial ambitions with vigour and urgency, seeking to displace their Catholic rivals. The formation of dynamic new trading conglomerates set the stage for greater competition in European colonisation. The British East India Company was founded in 1600 and two years later it made its first voyage of significance, sending a fleet captained by James Lancaster to the Indonesian islands. The year 1602 also marked the establishment of the VOC, with the merger of several competing Dutch merchant companies. It lost no time in making its presence felt in the Far East,3 establishing its first trading post in Bantam, West Java, in 1603. In subsequent decades, its reach was to extend far and wide, including substantial penetration of the Indonesian archipelago, a VOC presence in the Siamese capital Ayutthaya (1608), and the founding of Cape Town, South Africa, in 1652. Both the British and the Dutch were increasingly involved during the 17th century in the slave trade, hard on the heels of earlier Portuguese involvement, shipping slaves especially from the coast of West Africa to the Americas, and adding another dimension to the engagement of Christians and Muslims. Furthermore, the creation of the Dutch West India Company in 16214 led to the establishment of New Amsterdam in North America in 1625. 2 D. Lombard, Le sultanat d’Atjeh au temps d’Iskandar Muda 1607-1636, Paris, 1967. 3 K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts, 15961950, Amsterdam, 2006. 4 L. Rogala, The Dutch West India Company, CreateSpace, 2015.



peter riddell

3

The French also made an appearance on the scene, pursuing their colonial ambitions in North America.5 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City in New France in 1608, and during the second half of the 17th century France increased the intensity of its colonial activities in New France, including staking a claim for Louisiana in 1682. The dynamics of intra-Christian relations became increasingly complex in the 17th century, not least in Europe itself. The Thirty Years War (1618-48) pitted Protestants against Catholics and devastated the continent. Furthermore, civil conflicts, such as the English Civil War (1642-51), also took their toll. Such conflicts on the home front easily translated to clashes in the emerging colonies, overflowing onto the resident Muslim communities. The Dutch-Portuguese War extended over the first six decades of the 17th century, and within three years of its establishment, the VOC, keen to compete for the spice trade, allied itself with the local Ambonese Muslim community of Hitu to attack a Portuguese fort, which surrendered to avoid being overcome. In 1606, the VOC joined the Johor Sultanate in an unsuccessful attack on Portuguese Malacca. Nine years later, the VOC undertook a further abortive attack on Portuguese Malacca, only eventually succeeding in capturing the port in 1641. Further afield, the Dutch West India Company was far from being a spectator in the DutchPortuguese conflict, invading the Portuguese colony of Bahia in Brazil in 1624 and consolidating its hold in the region six years later by capturing the Portuguese colony of Pernambuco. Furthermore, there was also intra-Protestant competition between the English and the Dutch, involving three Anglo-Dutch wars during the century.6 Within a decade of its establishment, the British East India Company had founded trading posts at various locations in the Indonesian islands, determined to challenge the Dutch in the control of the spice trade. The Dutch had established a trading post in the port of Jayakarta in 1611. Eight years later, a three-way conflict erupted between the English, the Dutch and the Muslim Sultanate of Banten in West Java over Jayakarta. The Dutch asserted themselves and, with the destruction of Jayakarta in the fighting, established their capital of Batavia on the site. In 1628, they repulsed an attack on Batavia by Sultan Agung, ruler of the central Javanese Muslim kingdom of Mataram.

5 A. Greer, The people of New France, Toronto, 1997. 6 C. Koot, Empire at the periphery. British colonists, Anglo-Dutch trade, and the development of the British Atlantic, 1621-1713, New York, 2011.

4

introduction

On several occasions, the British and Dutch made treaties in order to agree on spheres of influence, but these often broke down. A diplomatic agreement reached in 1620 led to a period of cooperation in relation to the spice trade. However, rivalry erupted in other regions, and in the 1660s English-Dutch clashes led to the fall of New Amsterdam in 1664 to the British, who renamed the city New York. Three years later, the Treaty of Breda was signed, whereby the Dutch gave up their goals in North America in return for concessions in the Indonesian islands. So, as we turn our attention to the specific matter of Christian-Muslim relations, it should be noted that the records of Christian perspectives on Muslims and Islam from the 17th century were shaped to some extent by internal political and sectarian factors. Rather than considering Christian-Muslim interaction by region in this Introduction, we shall take a thematic approach. This will reflect to some extent the degree to which similar issues of Christian-Muslim relations were arising in diverse regions. Useful resources can be drawn from both Muslim and Christian records for the 17th century. However, surviving Christian records of interaction with Muslims are more copious than Muslim records of contact with Christians. This fact could potentially skew the analysis in unhelpful ways. It is highly unlikely that Muslims had less to say about Christians in this period than the reverse, but unfortunately Muslim perspectives and perceptions have not survived in written form to the same extent. A window into mission history The available records provide valuable evidence of mission outreach undertaken between the two faiths during the 17th century. Both Christianity and Islam are missionary faiths but the surviving records of Islamic missionary activity are limited. We do benefit from the enduring testimony of Sīrat al-Ḥabasha by Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥaymī (1608-60), who promoted Islam in the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia while on an ambassadorial visit in the late 1640s. This provides a narrow but invaluable window onto the practical channels for the spread of Islam during the 17th century. Additionally, the expanding Sufi and trade networks were instrumental in the gradual spread of the faith. Moreover, pressure to convert to Islam at times accompanied military action, as seen in Mombasa in 1631, when the local ruler, Yūsuf bin Ḥasan, who had himself converted to Christianity, reverted to Islam and unleashed a massacre of



peter riddell

5

those local Christians (Portuguese and local inhabitants) who refused to embrace Islam. However, 17th-century Islamic daʿwa was not characterised by the highly organised and focused approach to mission outreach adopted by diverse expressions of Christianity across the world. As a result, we are unable to draw on centralised records of Islamic daʿwa such as can be found for Christian groups like the Jesuits and Dominicans. Records of Christian missionary activity among Muslims are relatively substantial, especially from Jesuit sources.7 The Jesuit reports on India indicate that Mughal emperors, especially Akbar (r. 1556-1605), were targeted for mission outreach; indeed, Akbar’s own writings record this, as seen in his farmans about Portuguese-Mughal relations. Meanwhile, further east, the Jesuits were also active working among Muslims in the southern islands of the Philippines, as recorded by the Jesuit Francisco Combes (1620-65) in his Historia de Mindanao y Joló. Furthermore, the Documenta Malucensia represent a treasure trove of information on Jesuit missionary activities in the neighbouring Moluccan islands from 1542 to 1682. Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits were equally active in Africa. Baltasar Barreira (1531-1612) wrote various letters and reports, in which he recorded strong pleas for more missionaries to be sent to Africa to prevent Islamic mission gaining ground, describing competition between Islamic and Christian mission activities as one for ‘the soul of Africa’. In his Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné, Gaspar de Sevilla, a 17th-century priest from the Capuchin Province of Andalusia, reported on the Spanish Capuchin mission on the Guinea Coast, leaving valuable records for later researchers. Some of the records of Christian missionary activity suggest elements of subtlety or sensitivity in their approach. Missionary Prior Paulo da Trindade (1570-1651), in his major work Conquista espiritual do Oriente (c. 1630-38), reported that Christian doctrines were being transmitted to Indian Muslims in their native languages, pointing to an early concern for contextualisation. In a more radical approach, the VOC signed treaties with local Muslim rulers in Southeast Asia that stipulated there would be no missionary activity in either direction, according to the reports left by the Dutch mariner Frederick de Houtman (1570-1627). 7 J.S. Chandler, History of the Jesuit mission in Madura, South India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Madras, 1909.

6

introduction

Overall, the Christian missionary records across the various regions from the 17th century portray mission to Muslims as largely unsuccessful, according to François Bernier (1620-88) and Gaspar de Sevilla, reporting on the Indian and African contexts respectively. Dimensions of dispute In the following sections, we shall consider some of the different ways that Christians and Muslims were involved in disputation. There were, in fact, many different kinds of disputation and we can only hope to capture a representative sample in the following discussion. Political dispute Christians and Muslims locked horns in political rivalry from the earliest period of the Islamic caliphate in the 7th century, and the situation was no different in the 17th century. For example, we find in the 1604 letter from Emperor Zä Dəngəl (d. 1604) of Ethiopia to King Philip III (r. 1598-1621) of Spain clear anxiety about some ambitions towards the Kingdom of Ethiopia. Zä Dəngəl had his own secret inclinations towards Catholicism, and sought to consolidate links between Ethiopia and the Jesuit Portuguese kingdoms to shore up the Ethiopian position against the Ottoman Turks. Zä Dəngəl’s concerns were consistent with the views of the Jesuit missionary and diplomat Antônio Vieira (1608-97), whose domain of activities lay between Portugal and the Americas. In Coordenadas e anotadas por J. Lucio de Azevedo, he argues for the importance of conquering Muslims in war in order to impede what he saw as their expansionist ambitions. In similar vein, the Franciscan missionary prior Paulo da Trindade in his Conquista espiritual do Oriente portrays the conflict between the Portuguese and Muslims as both a temporal and a spiritual struggle. Theological dispute It is in the area of theological and doctrinal matters that ChristianMuslim disputation was particularly pronounced. Furthermore, such disputes had deep roots, with many of the ancient arguments and mutual



peter riddell

7

accusations between Christians and Muslims from the Arab world resurfacing in other regions. A common accusation against Christians in Muslim polemical writing is that of taḥrīf, or the corruption of biblical materials. This perspective is found in Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, a protocol of nightly assemblies (majālis) at the Mughal court under the Emperor Jahāngīr by the courtier and scholar ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī (d. after 1619), who rose to prominence under both Jahāngīr and his predecessor Akbar. Similarly, such polemic occurs in the works of Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī (d. 1658), himself of Indian origin but active in service as Shaykh al-Islām in the Southeast Asian Sultanate of Aceh from 1637 to 1644. Far from being an innovation by these two scholars, the doctrine of taḥrīf went much further back to early anti-Christian writings by Arab Muslim polemicists. In many other Muslim writings across the regions, Christians were portrayed as idolaters and infidels. Again, this theme was often recycled from earlier disputes in the Arab world. The Syair Perang Mengkasar, an epic poem concerning the war between the Dutch and the Sultanate of Makassar, portrays the Muslim fighting as a jihad, pitting ‘all good Muslims’ against the ‘infidel devils’. Similar themes appear in the writings of the above-mentioned Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī as well as in the great epic narratives known as Hikayat that were widely popular in Southeast Asia and served to shape Muslim attitudes to non-Muslims, drawing on themes from previous centuries in other regions. A particular case in point is in Sifa Rijali’s Hikayat tanah Hitu, which recounts a succession of conflicts between the Muslim community of Hitu and the Portuguese and Dutch. As Islam spread in the non-Arab world, legal regulations were sometimes drawn on to provide guidance to Muslim rulers in their dealings with non-Muslim subjects, and once again we see an example of transmission from the Arab world to the wider Islamic lands. For example, Bukhari Jawhari’s Tāj al-salaṭīn, produced in the Sultanate of Aceh in 1603, includes a chapter that provides detailed guidelines on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims under an Islamic polity that is closely based on the Pact of ʿUmar, traditionally linked with the second Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. Though not specifying Christians, such material would have contributed in some way to shaping the attitudes of Muslim readers towards the Dutch, English and Portuguese whom they encountered with increasing frequency during the 17th century. The chapter in question asserts the primacy of Islam and Muslims over non-Muslims in

8

introduction

diverse ways: not letting travelling unbelievers stay in Muslim homes and towns; prohibiting unbelievers from keeping weapons at home; instructing unbelievers not to mourn the death of family members publicly, and so forth. If Christians are not always mentioned by name in such works as Tāj al-salaṭīn, they are clearly identified and allocated unfavourable roles in some other works. For example, Lubb al-kashf by ʿAbd al-Raʾūf of Singkel (c. 1615-93) describes the experience of death, suggesting that at various points during the dying process a Muslim is tempted by Jews, Christians and devils. This collocation of Christians with satanic forces in this particular work again demonstrates transmission of attitudes from earlier times in other regions, as Lubb al-kashf, by the author’s own admission, is closely based on Kitāb al-tadhkira bi-umūr al-ākhira by the prominent Mālikite scholar of Hadith and exegesis, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurṭubī (d. 1272). The 17th century was a period of intense slave trading, as has been mentioned previously. In his short treatise entitled Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd, the West African scholar Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī (1556-1627) reflects a concern with the question of whether Muslims can enslave other Muslims. While he reaches a conclusion that protects believing Muslims from the slave trade, Christians do not fare so well. They are described as kuffār and, as such, are considered fair game for the Muslim slave traders. He presents this conclusion as a fatwa, taking account of earlier theological and legal factors going back to the time of Muḥammad. Anti-Muslim polemic can be found readily in Christian writings from the 17th century. The Dutch VOC official Francisco Pelsaert (c. 1595-1630), writing an account from India in the first part of the century, uses quite demeaning language in describing the Muslim officials and customs he encountered, referring, for example, to the ‘silly mundane fables’ associated with the local pirs. Edward Terry (1590-1660), a clergyman who served as chaplain to the British ambassador in the Mughal court during the reign of Jahāngīr, wrote A voyage to East India, in which he notes the ‘falsehood’, ‘ignorance’, and ‘miserable delusion’ of Islam (and Hinduism). Such attitudes were not uncommon among both Protestants and Catholics at the time. Jesuit records from India portray Islam as wanting, worldly and unstable; fellow Jesuits given voice in the Documenta Malucensia portray Muslims as having a very sensual and materialistic idea of



peter riddell

9

life in heaven and as being untrustworthy and unreliable in honouring promises made to Christians. In Africa, the French Capuchin monk and missionary Alexis de SaintLô (d. c. 1638) wrote Relation du voyage au Cap-Vert, a travelogue that provides an important ethnographic description of the Guinea coast, but also makes highly critical reference to ‘the imposter Mahomet’ and to the Turks. Louis Moreau de Chambonneau, a French agent of the Senegal company who spent three decades in Senegal towards the end of the 17th century, shows hostility towards Muslims in his L’histoire de Toubenan, and reportedly tried to test the level of Muslim slaves’ faith by flinging pork in their bowl to see if they would keep eating (they did not). The Portuguese Jesuit Balthazar Tellez, writing about Muslims in his História geral de Etiópia in the Horn of Africa, at times uses especially demeaning terminology such as ‘murderous dogs’ and ‘diabolical blindness’. With such terms of abuse being articulated, it is not surprising that some authorities sought to impose limits on disputation. André Donelha, probably one of the earliest settlers on the island of Santiago (off the coast of West Africa), whose life spanned the turn of the 17th century, reports in Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde that the local ruler established a law that banned disputation between Muslims, Christians and Jews in trade settings. Although Donelha himself articulated certain negative perspectives on Islam, he was able to switch between presenting himself as a Muslim and as a Christian in order to maintain good relationships with both groups. The various negative perspectives on Islam articulated above in Africa, India and Southeast Asia were also recorded in regions where ChristianMuslim interaction was less common. The missionary Franciscan Paulo da Trindade, who spent time in the Portuguese colonies of Macau and Goa, articulates an essentially negative image of Islam in Conquista espiritual do Oriente, which was based on his experiences in both places. He presents Muslims as obstinate and reluctant to allow themselves to be sensitised by the Christian message, choosing instead to concentrate on the relationship of mutual distrust and violence between Muslims and Catholics. The Jesuit Antônio Vieira (1608-97), who spent most of his life in Portuguese Brazil, in Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Oficio (‘Defence before the Inquisition’) describes Muslims as ‘blasphemers’, and in a letter to J. Lucio de Azevedo advocates war against the Moors.

10

introduction Dispassionate portrayal of the other

While political and doctrinal disputation between Christians and Muslims was plentiful during the 17th century, there were other voices that spoke in a more dispassionate way, laying the foundations for more open approaches in later centuries. On the Muslim side, again records are more limited. Nevertheless, some writers, such as Shaykh Niẓām al-Dīn Burhānpūrī (d. 1681), a close associate of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr (1618-1707), were more open to Christians. In his Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya Niẓām al-Dīn himself draws a clear distinction between idolaters – Hindus, Buddhists and others – and People of the Book – Jews and Christians. The status of the ahl al-kitāb in his writings broadly reflects their portrayal in the jurisprudential literature from the early centuries of Islam. Again we have a case of transmission from the Islamic heartlands to younger Islamic societies in the non-Arab regions. Some Christian writers displayed a sense of curiosity and interest in the world of their Muslim interlocutors. In De Imperio Magni Mogolis (‘The empire of the Great Moghul’), the Dutchman Joannes de Laet (15811649) provides the first systematic description in print of an Islamic state in India. His fellow Dutchman, Abraham Rogerius (1609-49), a clergyman and translator working for the VOC, in De open-deure tot het verborgen heydendom (‘Open door to the hidden heathendom’) outlines the possibilities for Christians to come to a mutual understanding with other faiths, writing in a relatively objective manner for his times. The Englishman Edward Terry also provides a window into Muslim India in his A voyage to East India, describing how Muslim principles were worked out in the life of a court where the ruler Jahāngīr considered himself to be a ‘devout Muslim’. To the west, British Sea Captain Walter Peyton provides in his journal a window onto Muslim concerns in interaction with Christians, reporting that the sultan of the Comoro Islands restricted contact between his community and Christian travellers out of a desire to protect both his compatriots’ sacred places and their women from strangers. However, this description was provided in a relatively detached manner, avoiding polemic. Further to the east, the Dutch mariner Frederick de Houtman in his Spraeck ende woord-boek, written while he was a captive, portrays Muslim life in Aceh dispassionately and without judgement. In his biographical Cort verhael, describing in detail his captivity, de Houtman relates a



peter riddell

11

number of debates he had with Muslim officials on matters of doctrine, describing how he resisted their attempts to encourage him to embrace Islam. His accounts were matter-of-fact and without polemic. The early VOC records from the Malay Archipelago also hold various reports, minutes of meetings, and informal correspondence from the Batavian Reformed Church Council (Kerkenraad), the brainchild of the Dutch colonial pioneer J.P. Coen that first met on 21 January 1621. The archives of this autonomous body, which was responsible for Dutch, Malay and Portuguese-language church congregations in the new settlement of Batavia, offer crucial insights of a largely non-polemical kind into Christian-Muslim relations from this earliest period of the Dutch colonial presence.8 The German linguist, theologian and traveller Johann Michael Wansleben (1635-79) provides a fascinating window onto Egypt under the Ottomans in his journal, portraying a Christian-Muslim relationship that was cooperative in certain ways, both in terms of past history and present reality. Interest in and appreciation of the other faith Some writings by Christians and Muslims from the 17th century reflect an interest in and appreciation of the other faith. Abū l-Faz̤l (1551-1602), the grand vizier to the Mughal Emperor Akbar and author of the famous Akbarnāma, reports the emperor’s positive attitudes towards Christians, using the presence of Christian missionaries to his court to offset the influence of the conservative Muslim clergy. The French physician and traveller François Bernier provides in his Voyages de François Bernier an interesting vignette on the mosque of Delhi and mentions the freedom of worship enjoyed by Christians under the Emperor Akbar. In the case of the Dutch merchant Francisco Pelsaert, his negative view of Islam and Muslims in his account of India contrasts with the more open views articulated by some of his colleagues, such as Wollebrant Geleynssen de Jongh (1594-1674), who argues in his De Remonstrantie that religious differences were not important.

8 H.E. Niemeijer, ‘The central administration of the VOC government and the local institutions of Batavia (1619-1811). An Introduction’, in L. Balk et al. (eds), The archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the local institutions in Batavia ( Jakarta), Leiden, 2007, 61-86, p. 76.

12

introduction

In the Indonesian islands, Dutch mariner Jacob Cornelisz. van Neck (1564-1638) participated in the 1598-99 Dutch fleet, and in his drawings and observations of mosques and Muslim practices he provides a set of spontaneous, unbiased and honest observations, giving a quite sympathetic image of the Muslim peoples in Eastern Indonesia and presenting them as respected foreigners, in contrast with his more negative portrayal of the Portuguese Catholic rivals of the Dutch. Certain travellers to Africa also expressed appreciation of aspects of the Islamic faith that they encountered. In his Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa, Manuel Álvares (d. 1616/17) describes the spread of Islamic literacy through qur’anic schools in West Africa, especially Sierra Leone, where Muslim scholars held a high position in society. He adopts a more negative posture towards Islam at the outset, but becomes more positive as he progresses. Overall, he provides a much more positive assessment of Islam then his compatriot Baltasar Barriera, although barely a decade separated their experiences. However, Barreira was in his late 60s when he arrived in the mission field, whereas Álvares was in his late 20s. This may well point to a significant difference in their respective adaptability and openness of attitude.9 Another traveller to Africa, the English explorer Richard Jobson (d. after 1626), wrote The golden trade, the journal of his voyage along the River Gambia in 1620-21. His account notes the similarities between Christianity and Islam at the time, showing a sympathetic attitude to Islam and a curiosity towards the religion and its practices. At times a spirit of reconciliation can be discerned in some of the 17th-century writings. Francisco Mascarenhas (1530-1608), Viceroy of Portuguese India from 1581 to 1584, wrote a letter about the siege of Chaul, which was one of the highest points of tension between Christians and Muslims in the region during this period. Though unsuccessful in achieving its goal, this letter was written with the aim of promoting peace between the two religions. Also in evidence in some of the writings are records of active ChristianMuslim cooperation. Täklä Śəllase (d. 1638) was an Ethiopian priest and the royal chronicler under Emperor Susənyos (1606-32). His Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia records how, occasionally, Christian and Muslim kingdoms were able to cooperate in power and co-exist in harmony, to the disdain of the Ottoman Turks. In order for this to occur, rules of 9 P. Hair, ‘Heretics, slaves and witches – as seen by Guinea Jesuits’, Journal of Religion in Africa 28 (1998) 131-44, p. 131.



peter riddell

13

diplomacy were established. Similarly, Paulo de Trindade, who is mentioned above, reports in his lengthy Conquista espiritual do Oriente on some interreligious collaboration, with Muslims offering to help Franciscans, though this is more the exception than the rule. Conclusion The 17th century witnessed a significant expansion in the scope and nature of Christian-Muslim interaction. The beginning of the century was marked by well-established or dynamic new Islamic kingdoms in India and Southeast Asia. The Mughal Empire was at its peak, and the Malay-Indonesian archipelago was witnessing the emergence of new sultanates such as Gowa and Aceh that were on the move. By the end of the century, these Islamic kingdoms were on the back foot, faced by a series of dynamic new forces from Europe that were seeking to dominate trade and to influence political activity. The European colonial presences from Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain and France were in the ascendancy. With these new developments, Christian-Muslim relations developed in new ways. Old attitudes were inherited and transmitted but at the same time were expressed in new ways and contexts, with early signs of what would become more open and engaging attitudes in later centuries. The stage was set for further contestation, and at times cooperation, between Christians and Muslims in the 18th century and beyond.

Islam and Christianity in South-East Asia 1600-1700 Barbara Watson Andaya Introduction The current population of Southeast Asia is around 618 million, spread across 11 countries. An estimated 40% are Muslim, and 21% Christian. Although there are Muslim and Christian minorities in mainland Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam), it is in the island areas (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei and Timor Loro Sae) where Christianity and Islam are most strongly established. The 17th century was decisive in these developments, for it was during this period that Islam consolidated its hold over most of modern Malaysia, Brunei, the southern Philippines and Indonesia (the world’s most populous Muslim country). At the same time, Christianity established an impregnable position in the Philippines, where today 93% of the population is Christian (notably Roman Catholic), with tiny Timor Loro Sae a distant second. The arrival of the Protestant Dutch (and to a far lesser extent, the English) in a region where missionising had been solely a Roman Catholic concern injected new tensions into European dealings with local societies. While a theme of accommodation can certainly be traced, economic rivalries meant that conversion to Catholicism signalled association with Spanish or Portuguese interests, while local Protestants were linked to the Dutch and followers of Islam to some Muslim ruler. Because religious commitment was often used to rally support in conflicts that were actually rooted in commercial competition, the 17th century saw a hardening of religious boundaries. By 1700, toleration for religious difference was still a feature of Southeast Asian cultures, but this had been substantially undermined by European efforts to assert political and economic dominance.

16

islam and christianity in south-east asia 1600-1700 The background

At the end of the 16th century, Islam was well established in the coastal areas of the western Malay-Indonesian archipelago, fostered by maritime trading networks that extended to India and the Middle East. In 1511, the Portuguese conquered the renowned entrepôt of Melaka, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, resulting in the dispersal of Muslim traders to alternative ports in Sumatra, Java and Borneo. Given the Portuguese goal of dominating the lucrative spice trade, conflicts with local rulers were almost inevitable, exacerbated by the legacy of Muslim-Christian hostility in the Iberian Peninsula and Ottoman Turkey’s advance into Europe. With Ottoman support, the northern Sumatran port of Aceh assumed a leading role in Muslim attacks on ‘infidel’ Melaka, which had become a centre for Catholic missionary activity.1 The resulting ChristianMuslim competition was particularly marked in eastern Indonesia. Although the rulers of the fabled spice islands, Ternate and Tidore, had adopted Islam, many communities still followed indigenous belief systems. The Portuguese therefore saw Christian evangelism as a way of strengthening their position against opposition from the increasing number of ‘Moor’ adherents. By the same token, Muslim determination to recruit ever more followers meant that doctrinal understanding was shallow. The Dutch minister François Valentijn (1666-1727), who published a long history of Islam’s arrival in Ambon, Makassar and Java, asserted that even Muslim ‘priests’ had little knowledge of the Qur’an and ‘were barely capable of reading a chapter correctly’.2 Many communities declared allegiance to a new faith simply according to their perception of who was the most powerful patron. Despite some high status conversions, opposition to the Portuguese steadily intensified, primarily because of their treatment of Muslim rulers (including imprisonment and even assassination). Islamic teachers called for a holy war and, in 1575, the sultan of Ternate, once regarded as a potential convert, was able to drive out the unbelievers. Many fled to

1 M. Teixeira, The Portuguese missions in Malacca and Singapore, Lisbon, 1961; L.A. Noonan, The first Jesuit mission in Malacca. A study of the use of the Portuguese trading centre as a base for Christian missionary expansion during the years 1545 to 1552, Lisbon, 1974. 2 K.A. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 2006, pp. 38-9. Compare this with Nicholas Gervaise, An historical description of the kingdom of Macasar in the East-Indies, London, 1701, pp. 133-4.



barbara watson andaya

17

the island of Ambon, which became a Christian stronghold.3 In 1605, the conversion of the ruler of Makassar in south-west Sulawesi gave Islam a major victory in what many saw as a religious race. In less than a decade, most of the adjacent areas and neighbouring islands were under Muslim kings. Elsewhere, however, Christianity was advancing. In 1570, the Spanish had established themselves in the northern Philippines, justifying colonisation by the claim that they were saving pagan souls. Manila was put to the torch and replaced by a Spanish town dominated by churches and monasteries. By 1600, the religious orders ( Jesuits, Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects) had been able to reach the majority of lowland communities, even if highly questionable methods were used to persuade or compel ‘Indios’ to accept baptism. But the Muslim south remained obdurate, and efforts to extend Spanish control here were unsuccessful. Brunei (northwest Borneo), attacked and occupied in 1578, was soon abandoned, and campaigns against the powerful sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao were equally fruitless. Nonetheless, the battle lines had been drawn, and the written sources reveal a deep animosity. The sultan of Sulu, for example, was told that ‘the doctrine of Mohammad . . . is evil and false, and that of the Christians alone is good. . . . Our object is that he be converted to Christianity.’4 The local response was hardly surprising and is evident in the sultan of Brunei’s reply to similar Spanish demands: ‘So this is the way that your people write to me, who am king, while the Castilians are kafir who have no souls, who are consumed by fire when they die, and that, too because they eat pork.’5 Yet other Muslims could point to a shared heritage, for around the same time a Sufi poet in Sumatra, Ḥamza Fanṣūrī, saw Islam, Christianity and Judaism as all ‘coming into being’ because of ‘the mercifulness of the Lord of all worlds’.6

3 L.Y. Andaya, The world of Maluku, Honolulu, 1993, pp. 132-8; Muridan Satrio Widjojo, The revolt of Prince Nuku. Cross-cultural alliance-making in Maluku, c. 1780-1810, Leiden, 2009, pp. 10-11. 4 Cited in E. Blair and J.A. Robertson (eds), The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Cleveland OH, 1903-9, vol. 4, p. 174. 5 Blair and Robertson, Philippine Islands, vol. 4, p. 163. 6 G.W.J. Drewes and L.F. Brakel (eds and trans.), The poems of Hamzah Fansuri, Dordrecht, 1986, pp. 72-3.

18

islam and christianity in south-east asia 1600-1700 The 17th century: European relations with Muslim powers

The arrival of the first Dutch ships in Java in 1596 and the formation of the United East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) in 1602 thus coincided with a critical time in Christian-Muslim relations. By its charter, the VOC was permitted to raise its own army, build forts and make treaties, transforming a trading company into a formidable maritime power. Because the goal was to dominate Asian waters, VOC enmity was initially directed against other Europeans. The Protestant Dutch had only thrown off Spanish control in 1581, and hatred of Spain and Portugal (united in 1580) was inextricably linked to a Calvinist abhorrence of ‘papism’. The effects of this hostility were soon evident. Dutch seizure of Portuguese-Spanish positions in eastern Indonesia put an end to Iberian ambitions and, between 1600 and 1646, the Dutch repeatedly attacked Manila. Muslim rulers in the southern Philippines, courted by the VOC, welcomed these new arrivals as allies, for the periodic Spanish campaigns known as the ‘Moro wars’ (1565-1663) were already well in train. At this point, the Spanish had some grounds for optimism: on the island of Mindanao a fort and mission were established in Zamboanga in 1635, and in 1637 Maguindanao was attacked and its mosque destroyed; in 1638, Jolo, the Sulu capital, was occupied. From Manila’s perspective, these campaigns needed no justification, and any Muslim prisoners taken in warfare could legitimately be enslaved.7 In retaliation, raids launched from Sulu and Mindanao targeted Christian villages in the central Philippines, with whole communities carried off to be sold in regional slave markets. Stories record the cruelty dealt out by combatants on both sides and the often horrific reprisals that followed. For those involved, this was not just a battle between local rulers and outsiders, but a religious struggle as well. Muslims frequently invoked the idea of holy war, while friars intent on ensuring new opportunities for conversion accompanied Spanish forces as advisors and helped draft every agreement with a Muslim ruler. Hoping to gain allies against the Dutch, the Spanish subsequently shifted their policy towards attracting Muslim support. Their efforts in this regard were supported by the Jesuits, since the penetration of Moro domains would be a great triumph and even the possibility of capture and death held the promise of a martyr’s crown. In 1645, a treaty was made with the powerful Sultan Qudarat of Maguindanao (1619-71), permitting 7 H. de la Costa, The Jesuits in the Philippines 1581-1768, Cambridge MA, 1967, pp. 354-5.



barbara watson andaya

19

the establishment of a Jesuit mission. Following another agreement with Sulu, the Spanish withdrew their Jolo fort. However, it was difficult to maintain amicable relations after a Jesuit priest told Sultan Qudarat (a renowned Muslim scholar) that his conversion to Christianity was a primary goal.8 The enraged Qudarat sent messages to rulers in Sulu, ­Ternate, Brunei and Makassar, exhorting them to unite against the Spanish, who were the enemies of Islam. In 1663, when Manila faced a Chinese attack, the Spanish withdrew from their post in Zamboanga, leaving behind around 6,000 native Christians, around two-thirds of whom soon reverted to Islam.9 The latter part of the 17th century thus saw the Muslim sultanates essentially left to their own devices. However, the destruction and human misery during the Moro Wars deepened Muslim-Christian animosity and bequeathed memories that shaped Spanish relations with the southern Philippines until the end of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the Dutch position in the Indonesian archipelago was solidified by several key developments: the establishment of Batavia (modern Jakarta) as the centre of VOC operations; the occupation of Ternate in 1606; the capture of Portuguese Melaka in 1641; the end of hostilities with the Spanish in 1648; the seizure of the major port of Makassar in 1669; and the occupation of Banten (west Java) in 1682. Though the Dutch maintained an entrenched suspicion of Muslims – ‘like oil and water, they cannot mix’10 – the basic VOC goal was to pursue profitable trade, and Company officials were always willing to make alliances with amenable allies. Throughout the 17th century, the VOC used a combination of force and inducement to conclude treaties with local rulers that gave the Dutch a privileged trading position and monopolies on export products in return for support and protection. In honour of this relationship, Sultan Mandar Syah of Ternate (1655-75) even named his two sons ‘Amsterdam’ and ‘Rotterdam’. Unlike the Spanish and Portuguese, the VOC had relatively little interest in evangelisation. However, because its charter included an obligation to maintain support for reformed Calvinism, clergymen and ‘visitors of the sick’ were recruited, initially to minister to VOC employees and local

8  Cesar Adib Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, Quezon City, 1999, p. 195.   9 Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, pp. 170-82. 10 H.T. Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, The Hague, 1934, vol. 6, pp. 9-34, 451-74.

20

islam and christianity in south-east asia 1600-1700

Christian communities who had been converted by the Portuguese.11 In time, Dutch missionary efforts were given greater priority because the goal of bringing ‘papists’ back to the true faith was encouraged by VOC officialdom, who believed not only that Calvinist Protestantism conveyed the true message of Christianity but also that converts loyal to the Dutch would provide a bulwark against the Muslim advance. In the competition to increase adherents, Muslim rulers and Christian governors alike were unforgiving at any signs of disloyalty, and whole villages could be destroyed for alleged apostasy. From the outset, some local rulers saw the Dutch presence as a danger, a ‘poison’, comparing it to a spark that could eventually engulf an entire forest.12 The poetry of Sultan Agung (r. 1613-46), the powerful ruler of the Javanese kingdom of Mataram, draws a direct relationship between Islamic kingship, piety and victories in war, but his attacks on Batavia in 1628-29 were unsuccessful. As resentment towards VOC economic pressures increased, opposition was often galvanised by Muslim scholars who argued that the presence of these ‘infidels’ endangered Islam itself. Prominent among such figures was Syeikh Yusuf of M ­ akassar (1626-99), who returned from Mecca to join an anti-Dutch rebellion in Banten, then a centre of Islamic learning and practice. Attempts to create a broader resistance, however, faced existing rivalries and cultural differences among Muslim rulers. These differences spelt the failure of the closest approximation to a region-wide Muslim movement, launched in Sumatra in 1685. At its head was an enigmatic figure known as Raja Sakti (the holy king), who claimed he was commissioned by Allāh to expel all Dutchmen and called on fellow Muslims to join him.13 A number of other rebellions inspired by Islam were raised against the Dutch, but any victory was elusive because of VOC military power and internal disunity among Muslims themselves. By the end of the 17th century, the Dutch were indisputably the foremost European power in Southeast Asia.

11 G.M.J.M. Koolen, Een seer bequaem middel. Onderwijs en kerk onder de 17e eeuwse VOC, Kampen, 1993, pp. 21-2. 12 Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschouwing van de Sadjarah Banten. Bijdrage ter kenschetsing van de Javaansche geschiedschrijving, Haarlem, 1913, pp. 44, 69-71. 13 J. Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Ahmad Shah Ibn Iskandar and the late 17th century “Holy War” in Indonesia’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 43/1 (1970) 48-63.



barbara watson andaya

21

The ambiguity of Christian-Muslim relations When we survey the history of Southeast Asia during this period, it is evident that Christian-Muslim relations were charged with ambiguity. Despite ongoing conflicts, there are numerous examples of the hospitality Muslim rulers extended to Christians, regardless of national origin. Nor were Muslim rulers necessarily opposed to the presence of Christian priests, as long as there was no attempt to convert their Muslim subjects. For example, despite Aceh’s reputation as a champion of Islam, Augustinian friars were permitted to hold a mass, which the sultan and his sons attended. In later years, the Franciscans were allowed to construct a church, where two friars were stationed.14 Such accommodation was sometimes aided by the recognition of a shared Judaic heritage, including the mutual veneration for the prophet David (Dāʾūd) and the psalms with which he was associated. In 1602, the sultan of Aceh even asked an envoy from Queen Elizabeth, James Lancaster, if he and his men would sing a psalm of David ‘in their own language’.15 The oldest surviving Qur’an from this region was in fact presented to the Dutch commander, Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge (1569-1632), by the ‘bishop’ of the Malay kingdom of Johor.16 While the Johor ruler obviously believed that Matelieff would treat the holy book of the Muslims with respect, there may have been a missionary motive as well, for the story of the Christian convert to Islam, Tamim al-Dari (father of knights) was widely diffused in the Islamic world.17 Muslims also knew of numerous Christians who had agreed (not always under duress) to accept Islam, undergo circumcision, and take a local wife. Accorded high honours, they were frequently deployed as envoys or advisors on military, diplomatic and medical matters. Such men often remained permanently in their new society, since

14 P.J. de Sousa Pinto, The Portuguese and the Straits of Melaka, 1575-1619. Power, trade and diplomacy, Singapore, 2012, p. 141; A. Meersman, The Franciscans in the Indonesian Archipelago 1300-1774, Louvain, 1967, pp. 127, 133-4; Sher Banu A.L. Khan, ‘The sultanahs of Aceh, 1641-99’, in A. Graaf, S. Schroter and E. Wieringa (eds), Aceh. History, politics and culture, Singapore, 2010, 3-25, p. 17. 15 C.R. Markham (ed.), The voyages of Sir James Lancaster, Kt, to the East Indies, London, 1877, p. 97. 16 P.G. Riddell, ‘Rotterdam Ms 96 d 16. The oldest known surviving Qur’an from the Malay world’, Indonesia and the Malay World 38/86 (2002) 9-20; P. Borschberg (ed.), Journal, memorials and letters of Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge. Security, diplomacy and commerce in 17th-century Southeast Asia, Singapore, 2015, pp. 66-7. 17 Ismail Hamid, The Malay Islamic hikayat, Bangi, 1983, pp. 120, 133.

22

islam and christianity in south-east asia 1600-1700

‘renegades’ were despised by other Christians, and were stigmatised for the rest of their lives, even if they renounced their Islamic conversion. Despite their cultural legacy of animosity to Islam, some Europeans did display a genuine interest in Muslim cultures. An early collection of Malay manuscripts, apparently acquired in Aceh in 1604, includes several religious texts, including the popular ‘History of Joseph’ painstakingly copied out (with numerous errors) by an ordinary Dutch trader.18 The importance of reciprocating hospitality and acknowledging status was also well understood. Muslim rulers and their representatives who came to Batavia or Manila to negotiate a treaty or to solicit support were received with great pomp, with much of the protocol adopted from indigenous customs. In Batavia, for instance, envoys were taken to the governor-general in European-style carriages but they were offered betel nut in keeping with traditional practice and the letters they brought were wrapped in yellow cloth (symbolic of royalty), conveyed on silver or golden salvers, and shaded by a yellow parasol.19 Muslim envoys who went to Europe were feted by their hosts in the Netherlands and London and, in 1681, King Charles II even knighted two ambassadors from Banten.20 Although medieval ideas of Islam as a farrago of beliefs promulgated by a false prophet were still widely held, these exchanges did reflect to some degree an expansion of European understanding of Muslim teachings. Among the Catholic orders, the Jesuits were foremost in this regard, for they had long been interested in Islam. The 17th century thus saw the compilation of numerous books and handbooks of advice for those working to convert Muslims in foreign lands. Nonetheless, while acknowledging that Muslim piety merited respect, Jesuit writings convey the general Catholic view that Islam was a heretical distortion of Christian teachings and that its founder Muḥammad was immoral. As a religion, Islam should be condemned together with Judaism and the teachings of Luther and Calvin. Protestant Europe shared similar views of Islam as a ‘senseless religion’, attracting followers only because of the possibility of having several 18  R. Bertand, ‘The making of a Malay text. Peter Floris, Erpenius and textual transmission in and out of the Malay world at the turn of the seventeenth century’, Quaderni Storici 48/142 (2013) 141-65. 19  L. Blussé, ‘Queen among kings. Diplomatic ritual in Batavia’, in K. Grijns and P.J.M. Nas, Jakarta-Batavia. Socio-cultural essays, Leiden, 2000, 25-42. See also M. van de Geijn-Verhoeven, Domestic interiors at the Cape and in Batavia, 1602-1795, Zwolle, 2002, p. 41. 20 R. Jones, ‘The first Indonesian mission to London’, Indonesia Circle 28 (1982) 9-19.



barbara watson andaya

23

wives and the promise of a paradise of sensual pleasure. More informed knowledge owes much to academics such as the Leiden scholar Thomas van Erpe (Erpenius, 1584-1624), who knew Malay, collected some Malay manuscripts and published the first Arabic grammar. This did not, however, encourage more enlightened attitudes. The respected scholar Hugo de Groot (Grotius, 1583-1645), could still claim that Islam’s expansion was God’s punishment for Christian sins in the distant past, while Muḥammad himself ‘lived by robbery and adultery’ and his teachings were filled with falsities and fables.21 Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676), professor of theology at Utrecht University, was particularly influential because a number of students he trained went out to the Indies as ministers. Voetius stressed that it was necessary to understand the culture of ‘primitive and illiterate’ peoples, and that knowledge of the Qur’an and Arabic was essential for those operating in Muslim societies. Like his fellow clerics, he also approved of the Muslim rejection of ‘papist idolatry’, but like them he was severely critical of Islamic beliefs, condemning in particular Islam’s denial of the Trinity and the meaning of the resurrection.22 Carried out to the Indonesian archipelago, these ideas were transmitted to local Christians by the first generation of VOC ministers, the most important of whom was François Caron (1634-1706). Born in Hirado to a French father and a Japanese Catholic mother, he was educated at Leiden University and spent many years as a minister in Ambon. His publication of 40 sermons in Malay was intended to provide explanations and encouragement to converts and to be read by lay preachers in the absence of a minister.23 In both Protestant and Catholic sources, the vocabulary employed to explain Christian doctrine in indigenous languages is of special interest. In order to avoid confusion with animist traditions, the Spanish were careful to adopt new terms, such as Dios, Espiritu Santo, and V ­ irgen, while VOC ministers such as Caron drew on a Portuguese lexicon because it was well-established as a lingua franca. Yet, despite their hostility towards Islam, they found it necessary to adopt some Arabic terms, especially in biblical translations, such as ‘Allāh’ for God (which has survived today in Indonesia), alim (devout), malakat (angel), hukum (law) and haram (forbidden). Some of the early vocabulary lists even indicate 21  Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism, p. 45; J. de Vries (ed.), Hugo de Groot’s Bewijs van de ware godsdienst met zijne overige Nederduitsche gedichten, Amsterdam, 1844, p. 157. 22 M. Vink, Encounters on the opposite coast. The Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka state of Madurai in the seventeenth century, Leiden, 2014, pp. 130-1. 23 Yudha Thianto, The way to Heaven. Catechisms and sermons in the establishment of the Dutch Reformed Church in the East Indies, Eugene OR, 2014, pp. 87-107.

24

islam and christianity in south-east asia 1600-1700

that Christians could also use the Muslim greeting Assalaamu‘alaikum as a standard form of address.24 Regardless of whether they identified as Christian or Muslim, it seems unlikely that local societies would have acquired any deep appreciation of theological concepts. Religious differences were typically measured by lifestyle, particularly in regard to the consumption of pork, which had been a widespread ritual food in pre-Islamic societies and was now identified with a Christian cuisine. While in some places Europeans did comment on faithful mosque attendance and the fervent recitation of prayers, they too saw the rejection of pork as a defining Muslim feature. The physician Jacob de Bondt (Jacobus Bontius, 1592-1631) relates an amusing episode when a Javanese woman only reluctantly sold him a parrot because she believed it would be given food forbidden to Muslims. When Bontius brought the parrot home it immediately broke out in Malay ‘orang nasrani kacur makan babi’, which he took to mean ‘dog of a Christian, eater of pork’.25 Although there are a number of European descriptions of Muslim customary events such as weddings and funerals, it is rare that 17th-century accounts, whether Protestant or Catholic, reveal any interest in local interpretations of Muslim doctrine. To some degree, this reflects an absence of sources, especially in the Philippines, where there are several passing references to exchanges between representatives of the religious orders and Muslim scholars. Rulers versed in Islam and often with knowledge of Arabic and European languages were said to enjoy debates with missionaries. One of several documented examples concerns the Jesuit Melchior Hurtado, captured in 1603 by a Maguindanao raiding party, who was often summoned to discuss religious matters with the ruler, himself learned in Islamic law.26 A more detailed report of such a debate comes from the pen of the Dutch Protestant Frederick de Houtman (1571-1627) who learnt Malay during two years of imprisonment in Aceh (1599-1601). Interrogated by Acehnese imams who pressured him to convert, Houtman argued that, while Christians acknowledged Moses, David and others as prophets, Christ was older than Muḥammad and 24 See further Thianto, Way to heaven, pp. 15-57; J.T. Collins, ‘A book and a chapter in the history of Malay. Brouwerius’ Genesis (1697) and Ambonese Malay’, Archipel, 67 (2004) 77-127, p. 99. 25 H.J. Cook, Matters of exchange, New Haven CT, 2007, p. 205. 26 De la Costa, Jesuits in the Philippines, pp. 197, 297, 303, 310. See also Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, p. 196; J.S. Cummons (ed.), The travels and controversies of Friar Domingo Navarete, 1618-1686, Cambridge, 1962, vol. 1, p. 120.



barbara watson andaya

25

therefore superior. Christians did not circumcise, he said, for the sign of their faith was baptism.27 Muslim comparisons of religious differences are even less common, but a generation later we do have another discussion of Christianity, this time by a Gujarati scholar, al‐Ranīrī, who arrived in Aceh in 1637 and was appointed Syeikh al-Islām. Although al‐Ranīrī understood why Christians might regard Jesus as the son of God because of the miracles attributed to him, they must still be regarded as infidels (kāfir) since both Father and Son were conjoined in the concept of the Trinity. Concerned above all with the Unity of God, al‐Ranīrī explained to his Muslim readers that Jesus was like other prophets; he was able to perform miracles only because he was mediating God’s power. Indeed, it was quite possible for Muslim scholars to distinguish between the Jesus of the Islamic tradition and the Jesus of the Christians, since in another work al‐Ranīrī depicts Jesus as a devout man wearing the green turban of Islam. Defeating his enemies, he rules over the earth peacefully, overseeing the destruction of pigs and idols. He even marries a wife in order to show the old-style Christians that Jesus is human and not God.28 The ambiguity that characterises Christian-Muslim relations in this period is well illustrated in the Southeast Asian ability to differentiate between the culture of Europeans and the Christianity they espoused. It was completely possible to adopt some elements of European lifestyle while staunchly maintaining an Islamic identity. This distinction is nicely captured by Sultan Amir of Tidore (r. 1728-57), who always put on a Dutch wig when he drank beer, leading the Dutch to believe that ‘he did not hold too strongly to his religion.’29 Nevertheless, it was impossible to ignore the association between European power and Christianity, especially since mosques were officially banned in Batavia, Melaka and Manila, the centres of European authority. The unease generated when a ruler ‘donned Dutch garb’ is evident in a Javanese poem describing Amangkurat II (r. 1677-1703), who ‘looked like the Governor-General of Batavia’ and ‘not at all like a prince of Mataram sitting upon his throne.’30 Europeans might reach accommodation with Muslim rulers, even call 27 F. de Houtman, Cort Verhael van ’tgene wedervaren is Frederick de Houtman tot Atchein, Gouda, 1880 (reprinted in W.S. Unger, De Oudste Reizen van der Zeeuwen naar Oost-Indië 1598-1604, The Hague, 1948, pp. 64-111). 28 K.A. Steenbrink, ‘Jesus and the holy spirit in the writings of Nūr al‐Dīn al‐Ranīrī’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 1/2 (1990) 192-207. 29 Andaya, World of Maluku, p. 207. 30 M.C. Ricklefs, War, culture and economy in Java 1677-1726, Sydney, 1993, p. 64.

26

islam and christianity in south-east asia 1600-1700

them brother and friend, but in times of conflict stereotypes of ‘Moors’ as deceitful, duplicitous and murderous resurfaced. Muslims responded in kind, and texts such as the Hikayat tanah Hitu (‘Story of the land of Hitu’) or the Syair Perang Mengkasar (‘Rhymed chronicle of the Makassar War’) speak of the Dutch as liars and accursed infidels, and of their own resistance as a holy war (perang sabil ).31 Infusing this religious invective was a profound realisation that Muslims were locked into a struggle not merely to safeguard their economic and political independence but to ensure that their Islamic faith would not be endangered. Conclusion What does the period covered in this essay signify in the development of Christian-Muslim relations in Southeast Asia? In the first place, developments in the 17th century hastened the spread of Islam through the Malay-Indonesian archipelago but confirmed the dominance of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines. As a corollary, the economic rivalries between Christian powers explain the Indonesian government’s classification of Catholicism and Protestantism as two separate faiths. Second, and more specifically, the period provides a necessary background for any understanding of the ambiguous nature of Christian-Muslim interaction in modern Southeast Asia. The accommodation that was an underlying theme in dealings between European powers and Muslim rulers persisted, although religious authorities, both Christian and Muslim, were often critical of what they saw as unacceptable toleration. Southeast Asian Muslims also displayed a dexterity that differentiated between any European association and their own religious identity. It is apparent that ‘anti-Christian’ rebellions mainly occurred when individual leaders were able to invoke a religious justification to challenge unacceptable impositions by Europeans. For their part, Europeans incorporated aspects of indigenous protocol into their official functions, and often registered alliances with Muslim rulers by addressing them as ‘brother’ or ‘son’. Nevertheless, it is equally evident that religious boundaries were hardening as the economic and political weight of the European presence increased. Memories of these 17th-century conflicts have cast a long 31 Entji’ Amin, Syair Perang Mengkasar. The rhymed chronicle of the Macassar War, ed. and trans. C. Skinner, The Hague, 1963; H. Straver, C. van Fraassen and J. van der Putten, Historie van Hitu. Een Ambonse geschiedenis uit de zeventiende eeuw, Utrecht, 2004.



barbara watson andaya

27

shadow. The Philippines still struggles to bridge the divide between the Muslim minority in the south and the Christian majority; in Malaysia and Indonesia, Christianity has not been completely accepted as an indigenous faith. Nevertheless, tolerance and receptiveness to the outside world has always been a hallmark of Southeast Asia cultures. It is thus worth recording the vision of the nationalist hero Prince Diponegoro (d. 1855), who imagined a future when his Dutch ‘brothers’ would settle along Java’s north shore, trade and work their rice fields, while those who adopted Islam would be honoured as ‘the sword of the religion’.32

32 P. Carey, ‘Javanese histories of Dipanagara. The Buku Kedhun Kebo, its authorship and historical importance’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 130/2-3 (1974) 259-88, p. 267.

Enforced migration: an Indian Ocean Africa narrative Martha Frederiks Introduction Bernard Lewis opens his book Race and slavery in the Middle East with an exchange between the British Consul General Drummond Hay and the Moroccan Sultan Moulay ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Hishām. In a letter dated 12 March 1842, Drummond Hay inquired after the measures taken by the sultan to enforce the prohibition of the slave trade, to which the sultan replied: ‘Be it known to you, that the Traffic in Slaves is a matter on which all Sects and Nations have agreed from the time of the sons of Adam, on whom be the Peace of God, up to this day – and we are not aware of its being prohibited by the Laws of any Sect, and no one need ask this question.’1 Slavery and the slave trade were indeed accepted social institutions in most societies and religious traditions until the mid-18th century (and often much later). Slaves were usually prisoners of war, convicts or people who had sold themselves or their relatives into slavery as a result of insolvency or famine; others had fallen victim to slave-raids.2 The story of African enslavement is therefore part of a much larger narrative of slavery worldwide. Though the scale and level of organisation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the plantation economies it supplied is unparalleled in history, neither slavery nor the slave trade were new phenomena.3 However, as John Hunwick has observed, the vastness of the material on the trans-Atlantic slave trade has tended to eclipse other histories of enslavement, such as ‘the forced migration of black Africans

1 B. Lewis, Race and slavery in the Middle East. A historical enquiry, Oxford, 1990, p. 3. 2 Lewis, Race and slavery, pp. 3-4; J. Goody, ‘Slavery in time and space’, in J.L. Watson (ed.), Asian and African systems of slavery, Berkeley CA, 1980, 16-42. 3 For slavery in Axum and the Funj empire, see R. Loimeier, Muslim societies in Africa, Bloomington IN, 2013, pp. 143-4, 175; for the Sultanate of Bigurma and the Bornu Empire see G.M. la Rue, ‘Frontiers of enslavement. Bagirmi and the trans-Saharan slave-routes’, in P. Lovejoy (ed.), Slavery on the frontiers of Islam, Princeton NJ, 2004, 31-54.

30

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

into the Mediterranean world of Islam’ and into Muslim societies in the Middle East and Asia.4 Robert Segal has called this ‘the other diaspora’.5 This essay focusses on the slave trade supplying that ‘other diaspora’, with the aim of exploring how the trade and its aftermath affected the religious landscape and interreligious relations in what Gwyn Campbell has coined as Indian Ocean Africa, which he defines as ‘eastern Africa from the Cape to Cairo’, a region that includes ‘the islands of the western Indian Ocean’ as well as ‘the landlocked regions in the interior [. . .] which possessed important trade outlets’ to the Indian Ocean.6 Campbell’s notion is helpful for a discussion of the slave trade; the conceptualisation ‘Indian Ocean Africa’ avoids artificial distinctions between ‘north Africa’ and ‘sub-Saharan Africa’ and between ‘Swahili coast’ and ‘hinterland’. The Indian Ocean Africa slave trade differed in many ways from the trans-Atlantic trade; it encompassed a much longer period and, with the exception of the 19th century when an estimated two million people were sold, the annual number of those enslaved was significantly lower. Also, slaves were but one of the ‘commodities’ traded. Until the 19th century, other items, such as ivory, tortoise shell, gold and mangrove poles, were equally important. Yet educated guesses are that, over the centuries, nearly as many Africans were deported via Indian Ocean Africa as via the trans-Atlantic routes.7 Thus, the story of ‘the other diaspora’ and its impact on the religious landscape merits attention. This essay begins with a brief exploration of the relation between Islam and African slavery. This is followed by a paragraph on the cosmopolitan world of the Indian Ocean, with particular attention to the slave trade in Indian Ocean Africa. Then the fate of African Christians enslaved in the Muslim world is explored, after which the abolition of 4 J. Hunwick, ‘The same but different. Africans in slavery in the Mediterranean Muslim world’, in J. Hunwick and E. Troutt Powell, The African diaspora in the Mediterranean lands of Islam, Princeton NJ, 2002, pp. ix-xxiv. See also A.G.B. Fisher and H.J. Fisher, Slavery and Muslim society in Africa, London, 2001, pp. 1-2. 5 R. Segal, Islam’s black slaves. The other diaspora, New York, 2001. 6 G. Campbell, ‘Islam in Indian Ocean Africa prior to the scramble. A new historical paradigm’, in E. Simpson and K. Kresse (eds), Struggling with history. Islam and cosmopolitanism in the western Indian Ocean, New York, 2008, 43-92, pp. 49, 50: ‘all parts of Africa washed by the Indian Ocean or its Red Sea extension (South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, Madagascar, and the Comoro, Mascarene and Seychelle Islands), as well as on landlocked regions in the interior including Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, which possessed important trade outlets to those waters.’ 7 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, p. 3; for estimates see pp. 55-7.



martha frederiks

31

the slave trade is discussed. The essay closes with a paragraph on how indentured labour, which was introduced to meet the demand for plantation workers after the abolition of slavery, affected the religious landscape of Indian Ocean Africa. Islam and African slavery Although there is ample evidence that the slave trade in Indian Ocean Africa began in pre-Islamic times, that over the centuries slave traders embodied a broad ethnic and religious spectrum and that African slaves were sold as far away as India and China, the slave trade in Indian Ocean Africa is predominantly associated with Islam and ‘the Muslim world’.8 Islam was conceived to be the religion of the majority of the slavers and the Muslim world the most important destination for slaves from Indian Ocean Africa. The title of Robert Segal’s book – Islam’s black slaves – reflects this. However, this perception is an oversimplification of what was in effect a diverse reality, with multiple perpetrators and manifold victims. Even so, Islam was an important feature in the cosmopolitan maritime world of the Indian Ocean. Scholars such as Abdul Sheriff and Gwyn Campbell have observed that, from the 10th century onwards, the Indian Ocean increasingly became a ‘Muslim lake’, a territory governed by a pax Islamica where Islam functioned ‘as the overarching milieu in which commercial and cultural relations were forged across the ocean’.9 When the Indian Ocean slave trade reached its apex in the 19th century and drew the attention of Western (Christian) abolitionists, Muslim traders (Omani, Swahili, Ja’alayin and Yao) dominated the scene. Hence, a brief excursion on Islam and African slavery seems called for. The Qur’an presumes slavery as a social reality. Following the Qur’an, the Hadith and contemporaneous praxis, the fuqahāʾ developed regulations for the social interaction between masters and slaves (e.g., concubines), as well as outlining the rights and obligations of 8 For the slave trade in antiquity, see F.M. Snowden, Black in antiquity. Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman world, Cambridge MA, 1970, or F.M. Snowden, Before color prejudice. The ancient view of blacks, Cambridge MA, 1991. For slaves in India and China see A. Sheriff, Dhow cultures of the Indian Ocean. Cosmopolitanism, commerce and Islam, London, 2010, pp. 230-3, and A. Wink, Al-Hind. The making of the Indo-Islamic world, Leiden, 19963, vol. 1, pp. 25-64. 9 Sheriff, Dhow cultures, p. 239; Campbell, ‘Islam in Indian Ocean Africa’, pp. 50-70.

32

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

both slave-owners and enslaved.10 According to Islamic law, only nonbelievers captured during a jihad could be enslaved; Muslims – as well as non-Muslim monotheists such as Jews and Christians – were protected from enslavement by the law.11 The reality, however, proved very different. In Indian Ocean Africa (and elsewhere), Muslims, Christians and ‘unbelievers’ alike fell victim to enslavement, and slave traders preferred not to inquire how slaves had been acquired. John Hunwick summarises the situation as follows: In pre-Islamic Arab society slaves had in the main been captives of war, and, under the Islamic dispensation, war was in theory only to be fought against non-Muslims – a jihād; hence captives to be enslaved would, by definition, be ‘unbelievers’. This rapidly became an established rule of law: i.e. that it was legitimate to enslave only the unbelievers, and indeed it became common to justify the enslavement of such persons as a punishment for their failure to accept the religion of Islam. This was not, in fact, the way in which slaves were generally acquired in practice, but on the basis of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, slaves could be purchased from Muslims in the borderlands of Islam on the tacit assumption that they were originally captives taken in a jihād.12

This tacit convention meant that directives in the sharīʿa notwithstanding, many free Africans, including many Muslims, were enslaved, especially on the peripheries of the Islamic world.13 A unique letter of protest, written in the early 14th century by ʿUthmān ibn Idrīs, the ruler of Bornu, confirms this. The letter, addressed to Barqūq, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, reads: The Arab tribes of Jodham and others have taken our free subjects, women and children and old men of our family, and other Muslims. These Arabs have pillaged our land, the land of Bornu, and continue doing so. They have taken as slaves free men and our fathers, the Muslims, and they are selling them to the slave-dealers of Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, and keep some for themselves.14 10 F. Cooper, Plantation slavery on the East Coast of Africa, London, 1977, p. 25. 11  J. Hathaway, Beshir Agha. Chief eunuch of the Ottoman imperial harem, Oxford, 2005, p. 4. 12 Hunwick, ‘The same but different’, p. xv. Also, the trade in Georgian and Circassian girls and the devshirme system violated the prohibition of enslaving non-Muslim monotheists. Various Ottoman jurists wrote treatises to justify this practice; Hathaway, Beshir Agha, p. 4. 13 P. Lovejoy (ed.), Slavery on the frontiers of Islam, Princeton NJ, 2004. 14 H.R. Palmer, The Bornu Sahara and the Sudan, London, 1936, p. 218.



martha frederiks

33

Yet despite these and no doubt similar protests, the practice of enslaving free Africans, irrespective of their belief, continued. Fatwas by scholars such as the Moroccan Aḥmad al-Wansharīsī (d. 1508) and the Songhai Aḥmad Bābā l-Masūfī l-Tinbuktī (d. 1627) corroborate this. Aḥmad Bābā in his Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd reiterates the classical position that only nonbelievers could legitimately be enslaved (for Aḥmad Bābā the category kāfir included Jews and Christians). Captives from areas that had a longtime Muslim government or from ethnic groups known to be Muslims, could be presumed to be Muslims and hence could not be enslaved.15 Not only Arabs, Berbers, Persians or Indians engaged in the slave trade; black African Muslims themselves were also selling fellow Muslims into slavery. The fact that both the Fulani shaihu Usman dan Fodio and his brother Abdullahi wrote treatises discussing the permissibility of enslaving Muslims is indicative that this was common practice in certain regions. Usman dan Fodio (d. 1817), closely following Aḥmad Bābā, considered apostasy to be the only legitimate reason for enslavement; nominal or ‘backsliding’ Muslims were to be punished and their property could be taken as booty, but they were not to be enslaved.16 Nineteenth-century European sources with abolitionist sympathies often referred to this transgression of Islamic law to vilify Islam. The explorer George Francis Lyon, who in 1818 resided for nearly a year in Marzuk, an oasis town in present-day southern Libya and once a renowned slave market, observed: Though the Mohammedans profess and appear to be strict in obeying the ordinances of the Koran, they most grossly violate one of its principle laws relating to Unbelievers. It is expressly said, that Moslems may take or destroy all those who do not believe in Islamism; but that they should first endeavour to instruct, and on their refusing to acknowledge the Koran, then make them slaves. The same law distinctly teaches that those who are already Moslems cannot be taken captive or sold. Nothing, however, is further from the idea of a Mohammedan, than to instruct the Negroes; for, instead of converting them to his faith, he appropriates and sells them to his own advantage. This is sufficiently unjust, but the conduct of Mukni and his men is infinitely more so; for they seize on the inhabitants of 15 B. Barbour and M. Jacobs, ‘The Mi’raj. A legal treatise on slavery by Ahmad Baba’, in J.R. Willes (ed.), Slaves and slavery in Muslim Africa, London, 1985, 125-59. 16 Abdullahi ibn Muhammad, Tazyin al-waraqat, ed. and trans. M. Hiskett, Ibadan, 1963, p. 122; A.D.H. Bivar, ‘The Wathīqat ahl al-Sūdān. A manifesto of the Fulani jihād’, Journal of African History 2 (1961) 235-43, p. 241. For similar examples see: Fisher and Fisher, Slavery and Muslim society, pp. 24-33.

34

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative whole towns where the only religion is that of the Koran, and where there are Mosques; and this without scruple or remorse.17

That 19th-century black African Muslims did not submit meekly to this violation of Islamic law is evident from the exclamations of a man who endeavoured to escape his captors. Lyon, who observed the incident, records that, just before the man was killed, he shouted to his assailants: ‘Tell Muhammed el Mukni that he is a villain; Paradise is shut against him and he will die by treachery. There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.’18 Though racism appears not to have been an explicit element in Muslim legitimisation of slavery, the tenacity of the practice of enslaving black Africans could possibly be explained by the fact that, according to Bernard Lewis, medieval Muslim perceptions of black Africans were ‘on the whole negative’.19 Arab and Persian Muslim sources reiterate well-worn racist tropes: black Africans had a defective brain and weakness of understanding (al-Masʿūdī, d. 956), were cannibals (al-Maqdisī, d. 991) and were closer to animals than to humans (al-Ṭūsī, d. 1274; Ibn Khaldūn, d. 1406); all this seems to have legitimised their enslavement. Lewis observes that, after Islam had spread in sub-Saharan Africa, Arab and Persian Muslim perceptions of Africans became more moderate, but the conviction persisted that black Africans, including African Muslims, were somehow different from other people and Africa could be legitimately used as a reservoir for slaves.20 And while in Muslim societies slaves could be both African and non-African, gradually the word for a black slave (ʿabd), came to mean ‘a black person’ generally, thus firmly linking the notion of being a black African with servitude.21 17  G.F. Lyon, A narrative of travels in North Africa, in the years 1818, 19 and 20, London, 1821, pp. 200-1. For similar examples see D. Denham and H. Clapperton, Narrative of travels and discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, London, 1824, p. 149; B. Mayer and T. Canot, Captain Canot or, Twenty years of an African slaver, New York, 1854, pp. 187-8. 18 Lyon, Narrative of travels, p. 199. 19 Lewis, Race and slavery, pp. 51-3. For general works on Islam and slavery in subSahara Africa, see, e.g. J.R. Willis (ed.), Slaves and slavery in Africa, Abingdon, 1985; M. Gordon, Slavery in the Arab world, Paris, 1989; Lewis, Race and slavery; Segal, Islam’s black slaves; Fisher and Fisher, Slavery and Muslim society; W.G. Clarence-Smith, Islam and the abolition of slavery, London, 2006; T. Walz and K.M. Cuno (eds), Race and slavery in the Middle East, New York, 2010; C. El Hamel, Black Morocco. A history of slavery, race and Islam, Cambridge, 2012. 20 Lewis, Race and slavery, p. 53; see also A. Muhammad, ‘The image of Africans in Arabic literature. Some unpublished manuscripts’, in Willis, Slaves and slavery in Africa, vol. 1, pp. 47-75. 21 Lewis, Race and slavery, p. 56.



martha frederiks

35

Trade in Indian Ocean Africa Much has been written on the cosmopolitan milieu of the Indian Ocean trade. Gwyn Campbell, Abdul Sheriff, Robert Kaplan, André Wink and others have all contributed to the field of Indian Ocean Studies, highlighting the long-standing commercial and cultural interconnectedness of the littoral zones of the Indian Ocean and the cosmopolitan centres it produced. Dhows connected the various shores of the Indian Ocean, linking the African continent, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, India and Sri Lanka; via the intermediary kingdom of Sri Vijaya (on Sumatra), the maritime network even included the Indonesian archipelago and China. As noted above, the world of the Indian Ocean trade was first and foremost a Muslim realm until Portuguese and other Europeans began to contest its hegemony in their quest for spices from the 16th century onward. The actors of the maritime world of the Indian Ocean were diverse, however, both culturally and religiously. Strategic entrepots such as Aden, Hormuz, Goa, Cambay, Calicut, and Kilwa had significant ‘foreign’ merchant communities, where Hindu, Jain, Jewish and Christian traders rubbed shoulders with their Muslim colleagues. Sheriff notes that respect for religious and cultural otherness seems to have been common in the world of trade.22 This religious diversity was also evident on the Indian Ocean African coast. Muslim traders are thought to have settled on the Swahili coast as early as the 9th century, while Islam in the Horn of Africa and Egypt was even older.23 In the northern region of Indian Ocean Africa, Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia were known for their longstanding Christian communities. Early Portuguese sources also speak of Christians further down the coast, in Mombasa, Malindi and Kilwa. Vasco da Gama’s 1498 ship journal records that he sighted four ships of Indian Christians in the harbour of Malindi and met with the Indian Christian merchants. The journal describes how the Indians brought puja to an image of Mary and child and rejected the consumption of beef. Scholars such as Michael Murrin think it most likely that da Gama’s ‘Christians’ were Hindus or possibly Jains, though he concedes that it was hard to distinguish between Hindus and Malabari Syrian Orthodox, because the latter had acculturated 22 J. Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario. Voyage ofte schipvaert naer Oost ofte Portugael Indien. Tweede stuk, ed. H. Kern and H. Terpstra, The Hague, 1955, vol. 1, ch. 33; Sheriff, Dhow cultures, pp. 239-58. 23 J. Middleton, African merchants of the Indian Ocean. Swahili of the East African coast, Long Grove IL, 2003, 114.

36

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

Christianity to a Hindu context. Some 50 years later, João de Barros also recorded that there were merchants from a variety of backgrounds – Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jain – in Malindi.24 Whether da Gama encountered Indian Christians or Hindus in Malindi, therefore remains uncertain.25 Da Gama’s contemporary, Gaspar Correia, reported that there were also Christian traders further down the coast, in Quiloa (Kilwa Kisiwani), residing in a special quarter of the town.26 Their presence is confirmed by other sources, but Correia’s identification of them as ‘Armenian’ is contested. They may have been Abyssinians or Assyrian Christians from Socotra, who conducted trade along the Swahili coast.27 These accounts demonstrate that the ports of Indian Ocean Africa were profoundly cosmopolitan. With the arrival of Europeans, the cultural and religious scene became even more diverse. The merchandise transacted along the Indian Ocean routes was wideranging. Slaves were only one ‘commodity’ among many; ivory, tortoiseshell, mangrove poles, slaves and gold were traded for silk, Cambay cloth, beads, pearls, spices, salt and porcelain.28 The diversity as well as the relatively small scale of the trade until the 19th century make a reconstruction of the Indian Ocean Africa slave trade difficult. Textual evidence older than the 19th century is comparatively scarce and fragmentary; the dhows that transported slaves rarely kept records. Materials from the 19th century onwards are abundant, but problematic. Tax records of the Indian Ocean ports offer a clue of the numbers of enslaved deported;29 but the bulk of the 19th-century materials were written by Europeans (missionaries, colonial officers and explorers). Their descriptions of the atrocities of the trade and vilifications of the slave traders often served political and religious purposes: the representations of the cruelty of the slave trade and its perpetrators were used to legitimise interventionist 24 A. Wink, The making of the Indo-Islamic world, Leiden, 2004, vol. 3, pp. 179-84. 25 G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville (ed.), The East African coast. Select documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth century, Oxford, 1962, p. 55; for a full discussion, see M. Murrin, Trade and romance, Chicago IL, 2014, pp. 109-31. 26 C. Correia, The three voyages of Vasco da Gama and his viceroyalty, ed. and trans. H.E.J. Stanley, London, 1869, pp. 97-8. 27 J. Teles e Cunha, ‘Armenian merchants in Portuguese trade networks in the western Indian Ocean in the early modern age’, in S. Chaudhury and K. Kévonian (eds), Les Arméniens dans la commerce asiatique au début de l’ère modern, Paris, 2007, 197-252, p. 198. 28 G. Mathew, ‘The East African coast until the coming of the Portuguese’, in R. Oliver and G. Mathew (eds), History of East Africa, London, 1963, vol. 1, 94-127, pp. 102-9. 29 These figures only give an indication. Many enslaved were transported illegally or died on the way to the slave-markets.



martha frederiks

37

politics.30 The writings of David Livingstone, with their elaborate descriptions of the horrors of the slave caravans, might serve as an example of this genre.31 First-person accounts of enslavement are few, brief and mostly recent (from the late 19th century onwards).32 There is textual evidence that there was some form of organised slave trade in eastern Africa as early as the 1st century CE. The Periplus of the Erythraean sea, a document describing the emporia of the Arabian Sea trade, characterises Opone (present day Ras Hafun in Somalia) as a place to buy slaves ‘from the better sort, which are taken to Egypt in increasing numbers’.33 The text mentions that Arab merchants who had settled on the coast were intermarrying with indigenous people, thus possibly indicating the beginnings of Swahili culture. Gervase Mathew has hypothesised that slave trading was probably ‘a constant factor’ in East Africa from the first century CE onwards, but the scarcity of sources documenting the period between the 4th and 7th centuries makes it difficult to substantiate this claim. By the time Islam emerged in the 7th century, Arab traders had overhauled Sassanid maritime hegemony and seized control of most of the Indian Ocean trade-routes, an involvement that continued well into the colonial period.34 From this period onwards, there is documented evidence that the slave trade from Indian Ocean Africa via trans-Saharan, Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes had become structural. The demand for slaves seems to have been constant. African slaves seem to have been ‘acquired’ for a variety of purposes; many were put to work in plantations, others served as soldiers, concubines, domestics or sailors on the dhows.35 André Wink has demonstrated that, as early as the 8th century, India was an area of distribution for black African slaves.36 30 P.V. Kollman, The evangelization of slaves and Catholic origins in East Africa, Mary­ knoll NY, 2005, pp. 68-71. 31 D. Livingstone, The last journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa. From 1865 until his death, New York, 1875; J.E. Harris, The African presence in Asia. The consequences of the East African slave trade, Evanston NY, 1971, pp. 53-4; R.W. Beachey, The slave trade of Eastern Africa, London, 1976, pp. 95-7. 32 See e.g. Harris, African presence, pp. 129-37; Hunwick and Troutt Powell, African diaspora, pp. 199-220. For Indian involvement, see Harris, African presence, pp. 62-4. 33 G.W. Brereton Huntingford, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Travel and trade in the Indian Ocean by a merchant of the first century, London, 1980, p. 28 (ch. 13). 34 Mathew, ‘East African coast’, pp. 98-101. For a discussion of the role of Arab slave traders, see J.A. Azumah, The legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa. A quest for interreligious dialogue, London, 2001 (esp. ch. 4). 35 Mathew, ‘East African coast’, pp. 94-100. 36 A. Wink, Al-Hind, vol. 1, p. 31; Harris, African presence, p. 34.

38

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

The area of present-day Iraq and Iran was another market. According to Ronald Segal, there is evidence from the 7th century onwards that Bantu East Africans (zanj),37 were set to work on date, cotton and sugar plantations, to harvest salt in the salt-pans, to drain marshlands and dig irrigation canals. Due to the harsh circumstances, a number of revolts occurred. The most successful was a prolonged uprising from 869 to 883 which even threatened the capital city of Baghdad. Though the rebellion was eventually suppressed, it allegedly left more than a million people dead and the economy disrupted. As a result, there was – at least temporarily – a sharp decline in the demand for African slaves; large groups of African slaves on agricultural plants were considered dangerous.38 From the mid-10th century onwards, Muslim sources again document a steady slave trade. The Mamluk expansion, the ascent of the Delhi Sultanate and the acceptance of Islam by Mongols in the region of Iran and Iraq all contributed to the dominant Islamic influence in the Indian Ocean. According to Mathew, from the 13th century onwards, the East African coast, too, increasingly became part of this ‘Islamic sphere’ and Muslim trading towns emerged along the coast, though East African chronicles, such as the Chronicles of Pate, Lamu and Kilwa and the Kitāb al-Zunūj, tend to antedate the ascendency of Islam on the East African coast to the 8th or 9th century. Because of a growing demand for gold, ivory and slaves, the East African littoral prospered, with Swahili culture reaching its heyday in the 15th century.39 Hans Mayr, who visited Kilwa in 1505, claimed one of Kilwa’s mosques was as beautiful as the Mezquita in Cordoba.40 Numerically, the Indian Ocean African slave trade reached its peak in the 19th century, when it not only supplied the demand for slaves in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, but also met the European demand for slaves for the Americas.41 Omani Arabs, Afro-Arabs and Africans such as the Ja’alayin (Nubia), the Yao (Mozambique), Nyamwezi (Tanzania) and Baganda (Uganda) collaborated in the twin trade of slaves and ivory, often pre-financed by Indian merchants. African chiefs also cooperated, hunting large numbers of slaves in exchange for fire arms and 37 Lewis, Race and slavery, p. 50. 38 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, pp. 42-4; S.M. Muhammad, ‘The Zanj revolt (869-883) in the Abbasid era’, Tucson, 1981 (PhD Diss. University of Arizona); http://hdl.handle. net/10150/557872. 39 Mathew, ‘East African coast’, pp. 110-12. 40 Freeman-Grenville, East African coast, p. 108. 41  Due to the impact of the Act of Wilberforce in 1807, slave trade from the West African coast decreased.



martha frederiks

39

luxury goods.42 Estimates are that, during the 19th century alone, more than two million people were sold via the Indian Ocean Africa trade routes; guesses are that many more died during the journey.43 Kilwa, Bagamoyo and Zanzibar, from 1840 onwards the seat of the sultan of Oman, who controlled most of the trade, were the main coastal outlets; Egypt was the main market in the north. The figures are staggering: in the 1850s, Zanzibar alone had a slave-population of more than 60,000, most of whom worked on Zanzibar’s clove plantations, while Bagamoyo is thought to have exported between 30,000 and 40,000 slaves annually and Zanzibar between 20,000 and 30,000 slaves annually.44 Similar numbers arrived each year in Egypt via the Sahara and the White Nile.45 Eye-witness accounts testify that whole areas were depopulated during the 19th-century slave-raids: complete villages were ransacked and the inhabitants enslaved to satisfy the demand. Christian Africans enslaved in the Muslim world In recent decades, much research has been conducted into the history of Muslim Africans enslaved in the Americas.46 A parallel yet forgotten history seems to be the history of Christian Africans enslaved in Muslim societies. This story seems even more difficult to trace. There is only sporadic evidence that Christian Africans were enslaved and it is frequently circumstantial. Even more exceptional is documentation on what happened to Christians who were enslaved. To complicate matters, slaves were usually renamed, making it difficult to track Christians who were enslaved in the archival materials. However, it is likely that there were substantial numbers of Christians among the enslaved. There was a longstanding Christian presence in certain parts of Indian Ocean Africa; Coptic Christianity dates back to the 1st century. From the 4th century onwards, the Kingdom of Axum also embraced Christianity, declaring it the state religion in 341, 42 N. Levtzion, ‘Slavery and Islamization in Africa’, in Willes, Slaves and slavery in Africa, vol. 1, pp. 182-99. 43 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, p. 56. 44 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, p. 146. 45 Beachey, Slave trade, pp. 121-30. 46 A.D. Austin, African Muslims in antebellum America. A sourcebook, New York, 1984; S.A. Diouf, Servants of Allah. African Muslims enslaved in the Americas, New York, 1998; M.A. Gomez, Black crescent. The experience and legacy of African Muslims in the Americas, Cambridge, 2005.

40

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

with Christianity continuing to be the predominant religion of its successor states ever since. The Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makurra and Alwa became predominantly Christian from the 6th century onwards.47 A treaty (baqṭ) with the Muslim rulers in Egypt negotiated in 651 secured Nubia’s political and religious independence well into the 13th century.48 Nubian Christianity gradually declined as a result of intermarriage with Muslim migratory groups, and of Mamluk southward expansion, which resulted in the sacking of Dongola in 1276 and the forced conversion of its inhabitants to Islam. Nubian Christianity ceased to exist sometime in the late 15th century.49 Only shortly afterwards, new Christian communities began to emerge along the East African coast as a result of Portuguese – and more generally Western – missionary work, gradually moving from the coast towards the hinterland.50 Wars and slave-raids continuously afflicted the Horn of Africa and the Sudan. There were clashes between Ethiopia and neighbouring Muslim states (e.g. Ifat and ʿAdal) from the 12th to the 16th century, between the Mamluks and Nubia in the 13th and 14th centuries, and between rival warlords in Ethiopia during the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes) in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Such wars, as well as incessant slave-raids in the region by, for example, the Sultanate of Bagirmi, the Bornu Empire and Ethiopia led to large numbers of people being enslaved, amongst whom were tens of thousands of Nubian and Ethiopian Christians.51 Occasionally, textual evidence is available to confirm that African Christians were indeed enslaved. Cornwallis Harris in The highlands of Aethiopia (1844) records an oral tradition according to which towards the end of the 15th century ‘Mafoodi, the bigoted king of Hurrur, unfurling the green banner of the Prophet’ organised yearly raids into Ethiopia during Lent when people were weakened, and ‘slew without mercy every male who fell in his way, driving off women and children, selling some into foreign slavery, and presenting others to the Sheriffe of

47 J. Hill, Zondervan handbook to the history of Christianity, Oxford, 2006, pp. 106-9. 48 J. Spaulding, ‘Medieval Christian Nubia and the Islamic world. A reconsideration of the baqt treaty’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 28 (1995) 577-94; P.M. Sijpesteijn, ‘Baqṭ’, EI3. 49 R. Loimeier, Muslim societies in Africa, pp. 137-40; R.A. Lobban, Historical dictionary of ancient and medieval Nubia, Oxford, 2004, pp. 103-15. 50 C. Alonso, The history of the Augustinians and the martyrs of Mombasa (1598-1698), Nairobi, 2007; M. Regyendo, A handbook of African church history, Limuru, Kenya, 2012. 51  Gordon, Slavery in the Arab world, p. 131; D. Ayalon, Outsiders in the lands of Islam, London, 1988, pp. 67-124.



martha frederiks

41

Mecca’.52 In the mid-16th century the Dutch merchant Jan Huygen van Linschoten commented on the large number of Ethiopian Christian slaves he encountered in Goa, recognizable by the crosses tattooed on their faces.53 From the early 17th century there is a detailed report of the 1631 attack on Fort Jesus and its adjacent town by the king of Malindi and Mombasa, Yusuf ben al-Hassan.54 According to the report al-Hassan ordered 288 Portuguese and African Christian men, women and children to be killed because of their faith (the Mombasa martyrs); the remaining African Christians were sold in the slave-markets.55 In 1634 the Jesuit Manuel Barradas reported that in Aden, Raza and Laga he had met ‘many slaves of the Portuguese from Mombasa whom the tyrant king had bought and sold as captives’. Among them, according to Gonçalves, were some 400 Christians, all of whom had been forcibly converted to Islam.56 And mid-19th century accounts report that thousands of Christians (mainly Oromo) a year were sold in the slave-markets of Gondar and Gallabat and shipped to Egypt, Turkey and Arabia.57 Detailed accounts of the enslavement of Christian Africans, such as can be found in the inquiry-report regarding the Mombasa martyrs, are rare. More numerous, however, are general references to Nubian and Abyssinian women being sought after as concubines because of their beauty and loyalty; for similar reasons, Nubian and Abyssinian boys were popular as eunuchs, serving as soldiers or palace officials. Jane Hathaway hypothesises, for example, that Beshir Agha, the Abyssinian chief eunuch of the Ottoman imperial harem from 1717 to 1746, may have been a Christian before his enslavement.58 If Burckhardt’s observations in the early 19th century are indicative of practices in earlier times, then Christian boys and men were forcibly 52 C. Harris, The highlands of Aethiopia, London, 18442, vol. 2, pp. 53-4. 53 Van Linschoten, Itinerario, p. 29 (ch. 40). 54 In 1632, Rome sent a commission to Mombasa to investigate the attack, following a proposal for the beatification of the martyrs. See G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, The Mombasa rising against the Portuguese 1631, London, 1980, which is an edited translation of its report. 55 See also M. Cullen, The martyrs of Mombasa, Nairobi, 1997; Alonso, History of the Augustinians. 56 Alonso, History of the Augustinians, p. 79; G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, ‘The coast 1498-1840’, in R. Oliver and G. Mathew (eds), History of East Africa, London, 1963, vol. 1, pp. 129-168, p. 140. 57 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, p. 154. 58 According to Hathaway, Beshir Agha, pp. 51-4, by the 17th century East African eunuchs were the main guards at Muḥammad’s tomb in Medina and the Great Mosque in Mecca.

42

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

converted, with circumcision as the initiation rite, though Christian girls and women seem to have had more freedom to retain their faith. In his Travels to Nubia Burckhardt writes: As soon as a slave boy becomes the property of a Mussulman master he is circumcised and has an Arabic name given to him. They are seldom honored with a true Mussulman name [. . .] It very rarely happens that any uncircumcised boys come from the west; and I never knew any instance of a Negro boy following the pagan worship of his father, and refusing to become Mussulman; though I have heard it related of many Abyssinian slaves, who, after having been converted from idolatry to the Christian religion, by the Abyssinian Copts, were sold by them to the Mussulman traders. I have been told of several of these slaves, particularly females, so steadily refusing to abjure their faith, when in the harem of a Mohammedan, that their masters were finally obliged to sell them, in the dread of having children born of a Christian mother, which would have been a perpetual reproach to the father and his offspring.59

The continuous demand for Nubian and Abyssinian eunuchs in the Islamic world produced a rather repulsive form of ‘cooperation’ between Muslims and Christians. According to Burckhardt, since castration was forbidden in Islamic law, Muslim slave traders delivered young boys to Coptic priests in southern Egypt, who performed the operation. After the children had been mutilated in this way, they were handed back to the traders and sold as eunuchs to wealthy Ottoman officials.60 Abolition The abolition acts in Western Europe and the United States, which led to a gradual suppression of the West African slave trade in the 19th century, ironically resulted in an increase of demand on the Indian Ocean Africa markets. Numbers, and also cruelty, reached a gruesome apogee as slavers eagerly supplied Asian markets as well as European plantation colonies in the Indian Ocean and the Americas, with Kilwa, Bagamoyo and Zanzibar as the most important coastal outlets and Cairo as the main market in the north. This upsurge of the trade in Indian Ocean Africa produced a shift in the attention of abolitionists from West Africa to this region; publications and reports on the brutality of the raids, the 59 J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, London, 1822, pp. 293-4. 60 Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, pp. 294-6.



martha frederiks

43

callousness of the slavers, the horrors of the slave-caravans and the lewdness of the buyers produced by missionaries, explorers and colonial officers and aimed to stir European hearts, proliferated. From the early 19th century onwards, Britain endeavoured to curb the trade by negotiating treaties and exercising pressure on rulers, but its means to do so were limited; Asian rulers considered ‘the efforts to curtail the slave trade as threats to their religious, political and economic sovereignty’.61 Soon the sultan of Oman, who resided in Zanzibar and controlled much of the sea-borne routes from eastern Africa as well as areas that imported slaves in Arabia and the Persian Gulf, became the pivot of British abolitionist diplomacy. A series of treaties with successive Omani sultans (1822, 1845 and 1873) led to the gradual curbing of the trade. Sea-borne trade continued for a while, as Indian vessels and ships sailing under the French flag continued to work, but they faded out in the early 20th century. Slavery was banned in Zanzibar in 1897, and on the Omani-controlled mainland 10 years later.62 Cairo and Ottoman-controlled Red Sea ports were the main slave outlets in the north, with Jeddah, Mecca and Medina serving as important intermediary markets, especially during the ḥajj season; these formed another focus of abolitionist diplomacy. British pressure on the Egyptian government resulted in the 1877 Anglo-British convention, which banned the import and export of slaves from Ethiopia and the Sudan, but laws to suppress the trade were not enforced until the British occupation of Egypt in 1883. In the Ottoman Empire, African slave trade became a legal offence in 1871. Ethiopia, another main source of slaves, did not abolish the slave trade until 1903 (and slavery until 1942).63 Also in the Sudan, the slave trade thrived until well into the 20th century. John Speke recorded in 1863: The minds of the Kurrum people seem greatly discomposed about the various rumours that they heard. One was that the English intended to suppress the slave trade, and they wished me to tell them if such was not a fact – saying that it was unjust for us to do so, as slaving was an acknowledged right given to them in the Koran, and handed down by their Russool Mahamed.64

61  Harris, African presence, p. 51. 62 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, p. 162; Harris, African presence, pp. 51-64. 63 Segal, Islam’s black slaves, pp. 149-57. 64 J.H. Speke, What led to the discovery of the source of the Nile, London, 1864, pp. 116-17. The slave trade bourgeoned during the Mahdist period in particular.

44

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

The British quest for abolition and subsequent interception of slaveships led to close cooperation between the British government and missionary organisations, such as the Church Missionary Society (CMS), the Universities Mission to Central Africa and the Holy Ghost Fathers. Modelled after the Sierra Leone example, captured runaways rescued from slave-ships and liberated Africans were brought to mission-run settlements in Aden, Bombay, Nisak (India) or the Seychelles, and aided to find an apprenticeship or earn an independent living.65 The children among them were placed in Christian orphanages, and where possible were assigned to live with Christian families. In line with Livingstone’s conviction that Christianisation and legitimate commerce would eventually eradicate the slave trade in the interior, British government officials, abolitionists and missionaries liaised to establish Christian villages in eastern Africa, aimed at spreading Christianity and producing merchandise. Financed by the British government, the CMS established the Liberated African settlement in Freretown near Mombasa (1875), and in the 1880s changed the mission station at Rabai into a refuge for escapees and liberated Africans.66 In Zanzibar and Bagamoyo, the French Holy Ghost Fathers established institutions for manumissioned children with the aim of evangelising them and training them to become exemplary Christians. Other organisations followed suit. This close cooperation between colonial powers and mission organisations firmly linked Christianity with European interventionist policies in the minds of many in Indian Ocean Africa. In particular, the settlements for liberated Africans caused much tension between the missionaries and local people; the latter conceived of them as sanctuaries for (rightfully purchased) fugitive slaves.67 That liberated Africans were not merely passive objects of Christian benevolence is clear from the fact that some of the Muslim children in Bombay refused to live with Christian families. And both Robert Strayer and Paul Kollman have described the tensions in settlements of liberated Africans, with protests against the strict regime and the prevailing European racism and condescension, which resulted in many Africans

65 Beachey, Slave trade, pp. 86-91. 66 S. Miers and R.L. Roberts (eds), The end of slavery in Africa, London, 1988. 67 R.W. Strayer, The making of mission communities in East Africa, London, 1978, pp. 14-29; [anonymous], ‘Freretown et la question de l’esclavage dans Zanguebar septentrional’, L’Afrique Explorée et Civilisée 2 (1880) 202-7; Beachey, Slave trade, p. 92.



martha frederiks

45

leaving the villages.68 The none too successful experiments with liberated African settlements came to a close when British policy changed; colonial intervention and occupation ended the trade, making the settlements for liberated Africans redundant. Enforced migration to Africa: slaves, political exiles and indentured labourers Enforced migration did not merely encompass people being taken from Indian Ocean Africa to the rest of the world; enforced migration movements also brought slaves, political prisoners and, in the 19th century indentured labourers, from the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia to Indian Ocean Africa. Along with these people travelled their religion, resulting in the emergence of Muslim and Hindu communities in new areas such as Mauritius, Reunion, Uganda, Zambia and South Africa.69 Mauritius might serve as an example of how enforced migration changed the religious landscape. The island was colonised by the Dutch in the early 17th century and populated with European convicts as well as Malagasy and Indonesian slaves. Most of the Indonesians and probably also a number of the Malagasy were Muslims. However, this community did not endure. It was only after the British occupation of Mauritius in 1810 and the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1834, that a sizable Muslim community began to emerge. To secure labour for public works and the sugar-cane plantations, the British recruited large numbers of indentured labourers, many of them Muslim, from India, notably Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Bengal. The Indian indentured labourer community in turn attracted entrepreneurs, many of whom were Gujarati Muslims, who had been long-time participants in the Indian Ocean commerce. These merchants took the lead in the institutionalisation of Islam, so that Mauritius now has a population that is more than 17% Muslim.70 Similar processes took place on Reunion, to 68 Harris, African presence, p. 71; Strayer, Making of mission communities; Kollman, Evangelization of slaves. 69 R.B. Allen, European slave trading in the Indian Ocean 1500-1850, Athens OH, 2015, pp. 5-7; H. Tinker, A new system of slavery. The export of Indian labour overseas 1830-1920, Oxford, 1974; M. Carter, Voices from indenture. Experiences of Indian migrants in the British Empire, London, 1996. 70 M. Emrith, The Muslims of Mauritius, Goodlands, Mauritius, 1967; B. Benedict, ‘Slavery and indenture in Mauritius and the Seychelles’, in J.L. Watson (ed.), Asian and African systems of slavery, Berkeley, 1980, 135-68; J.-L. Miège, Indentured labour in the

46

enforced migration: an indian ocean africa narrative

where indentured labourers from the Comoro Islands, Madagascar and India brought Islam after the abolition of slavery.71 In South Africa, the history of the Muslim community is also intertwined with narratives of displacement; its history is even more diverse and complex than the history of Islam on the Mascarenes. The earliest Muslim community in South Africa was established by an amalgam of Ambonese free Muslims (Mardijkers), political exiles and convicts from the East Indies, and slaves, brought or bought there by the Dutch.72 The Mardijkers and other free Muslims were allowed to practise their religion in private, but all forms of public religious display were prohibited. In 1657, governor Joan Maetsuyker, in anticipation of the arrival of the Mardijkers, re-issued a Dutch East India Company placate (plakaat) from 1642, which read: ‘No one shall trouble the Amboinese about their religion or annoy them; so long as they do not practise in public or venture to propagate it amongst Christians and heathens. Offenders to be punished with death, but should there be amongst them those who had been drawn to God to become Christians, they were not to be prevented from joining Christian churches’.73 Soon the Mardijkers were joined by other Muslims, such as the Malay servants of Dutch officials who opted to stay on the Cape. Also among the enslaved on the Cape there were Muslims, while other slaves also converted to Islam while on the Cape.74 Yet another segment of the early Cape Muslim community was formed by people from the East Indies who had resisted colonial rule. Among these ‘convicts’ (Bandieten) who were deported to the Cape colony was a significant number of ‘Mahometaanse priesters’; after completing their sentence at Robben Island, they began to organise Islamic education and made converts among the slave population. Also among the political exiles there were highly educated Indian Ocean and the particular case of Mauritius, Leiden, 1986; A.D.W. Forbes, ‘Mauritius’, in EI2; M. Emrith, History of the Muslims in Mauritius, Vacoas, Mauritius, 1994. 71  M.-F. Mourregot, L’Islam à l’île de la Réunion, Paris, 2010, pp. 27-35. 72 For Muslims in South Africa, see R.C.H. Shell, ‘Islam in Southern Africa, 16521998’, in N. Levtzion and R.L. Powells (eds), History of Islam in Africa, Athens OH, 2000, 327-48; R.C.H. Shell, ‘Between Christ and Mohammed. Conversion, slavery and gender in the urban Western Cape’, in R. Elphick and R. Davenport (eds), Christianity in Southern Africa. A political, social and cultural history, Berkeley CA, 1997, 268-77; R.C.H. Shell, ‘The march of the Mardijkers. The toleration of Islam in the Cape colony’ Kronos 22 (1995) 3-20; R.C.H. Shell, ‘Rites and rebellion. Islamic conversion at the Cape, 1808 to 1915’, in C. Saunders et al. (eds), Studies in the history of Cape Town, Cape Town, 1983, vol. 5, pp. 1-45. 73 E.M. Mahida, History of Muslims in South Africa, Durban, 1993, p. 2. 74 A.J. Böeseken, Slaves and free blacks at the Cape 1658-1700, Tafelberg, 1977.



martha frederiks

47

Muslims, the most famous of whom was Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī, who was forcibly exiled to Zandvliet in 1694. Since Muslims were prohibited from practising their religion in public, they began to organise themselves secretly. Muslim scholars, such as Shaykh Yūsuf and Tuan Guru clandestinely educated slaves in their private homes.75 Thus, the early Muslim community grew in opposition to colonialism; because Christianity was considered the religion of the colonial oppressors, Islam gained a reputation as the religion of the oppressed. Ironically, Dutch slave owners also actively contributed to the growth of Islam among the enslaved. By law prohibited to hold Christian slaves, owners encouraged their slaves to become or remain Muslims so that they were not obliged to manumit them.76 After the British annexed the Cape colony in 1806, the Muslim community expanded further and the first mosques were built: East African liberated slaves, known as Zanzibari were put ashore on the Cape, later followed by Indian indentured labourers (Christians, Hindu and Muslims), who settled in Natal and Indian traders. Present-day South African Muslims trace their spiritual heritage to this culturally diverse community.77

75 See further, A. Davids, Mosques of Bo-Kaap. A social history of Islam at the Cape, Athlone, Cape Town, 1980; Y. da Costa and A. Davids, Pages from Cape Muslim History, Pietermaritzburg, 1994; J.L. Cilliers, ‘Christians and Muslims at the Cape of Good Hope 1625-1795. A study of interreligious relations and their power-based dynamics’, Cape Town, 1997 (Ph.D Diss. University of Western Cape); Loimeier, Muslim societies in Africa, pp. 248-66. 76 Cilliers, ‘Christians and Muslims at the Cape’, p. 143. 77 C.A. Quinn and F. Quinn, Pride, faith and fear. Islam in sub-Sahara Africa, Oxford, 2003, pp. 126-46; Loimeier, Muslim societies in Africa, p. 250.

Enforced migration: an Atlantic narrative in Christian-Muslim relations David D. Grafton This essay explores the theme of enslavement in the Atlantic world from the 16th to the 19th century. Its aim is to provide a survey of how slavery affected Christian-Muslim relations in the Atlantic world. It will first review the references to slavery in Christian and Muslim religious texts and the religious justification for its ongoing practice through a common tradition of the ‘Hamitic curse’. It will then examine the practice of enslavement among Christian and Muslim communities in western Europe and North Africa, and then how this institution was enacted in the Spanish, Portuguese and British colonies of the New World. Finally, it will examine arguments put forward for the abolition of slavery or the manumission of slaves among Christians and Muslims. Throughout the centuries, Christians and Muslims each applied their own religious texts to promote and justify enslavement of others, or to argue for the abolition of slavery. These arguments were made by religious scholars and missionaries who sought to articulate their own views of their faith, as well as merchants, traders, colonialists and slave owners, all of whom used religion as a pretext for their own advantage. In light of enslavement and human trafficking in the early 21st century by Islamist militias such as Boko Haram and ISIS, debates have again arisen as to whether Islam or Christianity promotes or prohibits slavery. Certainly, the fine line between the enactment of religious orthodoxy and the use of religion for political and economic advantage is often crossed. Within the context of the Atlantic world from the 16th to the 19th century, slavery led to the enforced migration of millions of Africans through an unparalleled institution of slavery that set the stage for Christian-Muslim relations in the New World, and it continues to lurk in the shadows of Christian-Muslim relations in the Americas.

50

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative Slavery in Christian and Muslim scriptures

As noted by Martha Frederiks in ‘Enforced migration: an Indian Ocean Africa narrative’, slavery and the slave trade have played a part in all human civilisations.1 Recorded rules and regulations for the enslavement of other human beings as property go back as far as the Code of Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE. Hebrew scripture reflects the ancient practice of the enslavement of other peoples and the rules and regulations to govern it. The book of Genesis notes the presence of slaves (ebed) within the household of Abraham (Gen. 12:5; 14:14; 20:14; 24:35-6) and suggests that they were passed on as part of his estate (26:13-4). The theme of Hebrew ‘bondage’ in Egypt is prominent throughout the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. It is therefore perhaps surprising that, although the Israelite legal codes of the Pentateuch sanction chattel slavery of foreigners captured in war (Dt. 20:1-18), and the enslavement of others and even fellow Hebrews for debts, they do not provide for the manumission of such slaves (Ex. 21:1-11; Lev. 25:39-55; Dt. 15:1-18).2 The New Testament does not provide sanction or rationale for imposing slavery, but it does assume its presence in society (Luke 7:1-10). It has been pointed out by Christians, both supporters and detractors of slavery, that Jesus never directly commented on the practice.3 The canonical apostolic writings also accept slavery as a normal social station that is inconsequential to the Christian faith. As Roman slaves converted to Christianity, they were encouraged to remain slaves rather than rebel against their masters and jeopardise the standing of the Christian community (Eph. 6:5-6; Col. 3:22-5; 1 Tim. 6:1-2; Tit. 2:9-10; Philemon 1:10-16; 1 Pet. 2:18-21).4 As Christianity became the dominant religion and part of 1 M. Frederiks, ‘Enforced migration: an Indian Ocean Africa narrative’, above. 2 For further reading on slavery in the Bible, see S. Bakon, ‘Why did Torah allow servitude?’, Jewish Bible Quarterly 42 (2014) 89-94; A. Callahan, R. Horsley and A. Smith, Slavery in text and interpretation, Atlanta GA, 1998; P. Flesher, ‘Slaves, Israelites, and the system of the Mishnah’, in A. Avery-Peck (ed.), Literature of early Rabbinic Judaism. Issues in Talmudic redaction and interpretation, Lanham MD, 1989, 101-9; C. Hezser, Jewish slavery in Antiquity, Oxford, 2009. 3 For an overview of the Christian pro- and anti-slavery biblical arguments, see P. Hogg, The African slave trade and its suppression. A classified and annotated bibliography of books, pamphlets and periodicals, New York, 2014, pp. 137-90; and W.M. Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, war and women. Case issues in biblical interpretation, Scottsdale PA, 1983, pp. 31-66. 4 See J. Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament. Literary, social, and moral dimensions, Minneapolis MN, 2006, pp. 85-117, where he discusses the importance of Christian slave ‘codes’ or ‘handbooks’ in New Testament and post-apostolic literature.



David D. Grafton

51

imperial culture in Europe, it went on to sanction legal enslavement.5 While the Hebrew Bible and New Testament do use the terms ebed and doulos as religious terms (e.g. the ‘servant of God’), references to the accepted social practice of physical enslavement are clear. The practice of slavery in pre-Islamic Arabia was part of a broader accepted practice of inter-ethnic and inter-tribal enslavement in the ancient Near East.6 Just as the Torah and New Testament refer to slavery, the Qur’an recognises the presence of unequal social systems, though it does not explicitly command the enslavement of peoples, other than as booty during times of warfare (Q 47:4, and also various Hadiths),7 and as concubines (Q 4:3; 4:24; 4:25: 4:36; 16:71; 23:6; 24:31; 24:33; 24:58; 30:28; 30:50; 33:52; 33:55; 70:30). Ultimately, the Qur’an encourages their manumission (Q 8:67; 16:75; 18:60; 18:62; 24:32). The traditional word in Arabic for slave or servant, ʿabd, is used in the Qur’an exclusively as a religious term meaning ‘servant of God’. The plural ʿabīd, however, does denote ‘slaves’, as opposed to ʿibād which denotes ‘worshippers’. However, the words fatā and fatayāt (Q 4:25; 12:30; 18:60; 18:62; 24:33) are also used to refer to boy and girl servants, and Q 4:3 was the primary āya used in support of the legal role of concubines (mā malakat aymānukum). There were Christian slaves and concubines in Mecca before the time of Muḥammad, during his life and during the Islamic conquests of the Byzantine Empire.8 In the early years of the Islamic empires, the Byzantines and Muslims engaged in the capture, enslavement and ransom of soldiers and subjects along the borders.9 Christian communities that fought and were conquered were eligible to be enslaved, though those who surrendered were no longer liable to be enslaved but were subject to the treaties under which they were subjugated as dhimmīs. Classical Islamic scholars developed long treatises on the regulations concerning slavery as part of the doctrines of jihād and kufr. Islamic law permitted polytheists and individual members of the ahl al-kitāb to be enslaved if they were conquered or born to an enslaved family. 5 W. Phillips, Slavery from Roman times to the early transatlantic trade, Minneapolis MN, 1985; Y. Rotman, Les esclaves et l’esclavage. De la Méditerranée antique à la Méditerranée médiévale, VIe-XIe siècles, Paris, 2004. 6 C. el Hamel, Black Morocco. A history of slavery, race, and Islam, New York, 2013, p. 46. 7 R. Peters, Islam and colonialism. The doctrine of jihad in modern history, The Hague, 1979, pp. 26-8. 8 G. Osman, ‘Pre-Islamic Arab converts to Christianity in Mecca and Medina. An investigation into the Arabic sources’, Muslim World 95 (2005) 67-80. 9 B. Lewis, Race and slavery in the Middle East, New York, 1990, p. 7.

52

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

The exception to this, however, was Arab Christian tribes, who were protected from enslavement during the Arab Islamic conquest of Byzantine territories.10 Apart from these Arab tribes, the laws about enslavement did not distinguish between races or ethnicities, but only between religions and genders. Jurists usually recognised the rights and responsibilities of Christian domestic slaves as members of the ahl al-kitāb, while women, as sexual slaves, were most commonly left without any protection under the law. Slavery thus became an accepted social practice within Muslim societies. Slaves were appropriated through warfare and enslaved for political, domestic or sexual advantage. Male slaves could be manumitted by their owners, or they could be freed by being ransomed. Eventually, the Sudan and later other sub-Saharan tribes became targets for Arab Muslim slave traders, enslavement then being supported by pre-Islamic prophetic precedents in the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (stories of the prophets) genre. The Hamitic curse Christians and Muslims have both utilised the traditions of Noah/Nūḥ in order to legitimise the enslavement of Africans. Genesis 9:21-9 tells the story of Noah, who curses his youngest son Ham for looking on him as he lay naked in a drunken stupor, while he blesses his two other sons, Shem and Japheth, for covering him up as they averted their eyes from his nakedness. Noah shouts at Ham, ‘Cursed be Canaan [the son of Ham]; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers’ (Gen 9:25). In Christian and Muslim traditions, Ham was believed to be the ancestor of the Africans, the most common linkage being made through the Hebrew word hām, which has been claimed to be etymologically related to the word ‘hot’, ‘dark’ or ‘black’, although this is highly uncertain. A rabbinical tradition recounts that, after Noah had cursed Canaan, God turned Noah’s face black as a visible sign of the curse. This story was picked up and used by early Church Fathers, especially Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo and Ephrem of Nisibis.11 The Muslim scholar Ibn Qutayba (d. 889) notes that the early Christian convert to Islam, Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. c. 732), was supposedly the first to explain the Hamitic curse 10 R. Peters, Jihad in medieval and modern Islam, Leiden, 1977, pp. 31-2. 11 S. Johnson, The myth of Ham in nineteenth-century American Christianity, New York, 2004, p. 29; and S. Haynes, Noah’s curse. The biblical justification of American slavery, New York, 2002, p. 7.



David D. Grafton

53

to the Muslim community,12 while the Jewish convert to Islam, Kaʿb al-Aḥbār (d. 653), also refers to this in his Isrāʾīliyyāt.13 However, because of the complicated relationship between Arab rabbinical sources and the Isrāʾīliyyāt, historians have debated whether the association of Ham with Africans is the result of racial prejudice coming from Jewish Talmudic or rather Arab Muslim sources.14 As early as the 8th century, Arab Muslims began to participate with Berber traders in the North African slave trade as they advanced along the coast of West Africa. By the 14th century, the writings of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. c. 1377) and ʿUthmān ibn Idrīs (d. 1388) record that slavery was a deeply ingrained institution in Islamic societies in sub-Saharan Africa. While slavery may have had long-standing legal justification within Islam, in reality social practices were governed by economics and empire. The fatwa of Makhlūf ibn ʿAlī ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Balbālī (d. 1534), an ʿālim who taught in Kano, Katsina and Timbuktu, argued that Muslims were forbidden from enslaving black Muslims, regardless of accepted traditions of the Hamitic curse, and that enslaved Muslims of the Fulani and Songhay tribes should be freed. It is clear that the legal prohibition against enslaving other Muslims was disregarded in favour of economic gain, especially as the trans-Atlantic slave trade grew. Thus, although traders and rulers were constantly reminded by some religious scholars of their duties and responsibilities to their fellow Muslims, such warnings were routinely ignored. European Christians also made use of the Hamitic curse to justify the enslavement of black Africans. Inferred interpretations of the biblical story also attributed all sorts of moral and racial deficiencies to the descendants of Ham, especially sexual immorality. By the 17th century, the Bible was being used to justify human trafficking and the established institution of slavery in the North American colonies.15 Even as late as 1861, the Reformed American Church historian Philip Schaff, argued that slavery was an innate part of the culture of biblical times, and that, while

12 J. Hopkins and N. Levtzion (eds), Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history, Cambridge, 1981, p. 15. 13 D. Goldenberg, The curse of Ham. Race and slavery in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Princeton NJ, 2003, p. 31. 14 See Lewis, Race and slavery, p. 123, and R. Patai, Hebrew myths, New York, 1964, p. 121, as cited in el Hamel, Black Morocco, pp. 64-5; G. Vajda, art. ‘Isrāʾīliyyāt’, in EI2. 15 Haynes, Noah’s curse, p. 8.

54

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

the New Testament did not support or condemn the institution outright, the Hamitic curse was real and a burden placed upon Africans.16 Enslavement and empire The acceptance of slavery among Christians and Muslims across the Atlantic grew out of the earlier practice of enslavement of conquered peoples around the Mediterranean. However, evolving seafaring technology, the desire for new markets and the establishment of European imperial colonies introduced a new type of slavery not previously seen.17 When the Muslims crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711, they engaged in clashes with the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. The continuing conflict between the Arab and Berber Muslims and the Iberian Visigoth kingdoms provided a steady stream of booty and captives, which constituted an important part of the Mediterranean trading and commercial system in the early medieval period. Enslavement of the enemy followed long-standing practices of conquest and economic gain. Much like Christian communities who were subjected to the legal arrangements dictated by sharīʿa after their surrender to Arab Muslim armies, Muslim kingdoms that capitulated during the Reconquista were allowed to maintain their religious institutions and practices.18 Nevertheless, towns that were seized had the potential to provide slaves for the conqueror’s markets. In other cases, the captives were ransomed for economic gain. For example, when Alfonso VIII of Castile captured the Muslim town of Santafila in 1182, the captives were ransomed back by the Muslim community of Seville.19 Such actions provided a steady stream of income for a series of kingdoms. In addition, enslavement was often undertaken to support the growing military and naval expeditions. Slave raiding along the coasts of Spain and Italy provided a steady stream of captive labour for the galleons of the burgeoning navies heading to the New World.20 The best-known European captured by Muslim raiders was Miguel de Cervantes (d. 1616), taken in 1574 and eventually ransomed 16 Johnson, Myth of Ham, pp. 38-9. 17 An important study of the numbers of enslaved is still P. Curtain, The Atlantic slave trade. A census, Madison WI, 1969. 18 K. Cook, Forbidden passages. Muslims and Moriscos in colonial Spanish America, Philadelphia PA, 2016, p. 13. 19 J.V. Tolan, Europe and the Islamic world. A history, Princeton NJ, 2013, p. 65. 20 R.C. Davis, Holy war and human bondage. Tales of Christian-Muslim slavery in the early-modern Mediterranean, Santa Barbara CA, 2009, p. 113.



David D. Grafton

55

by his family after five years of enslavement in Algiers. Memories of his experience became an important part of his literary work.21 The result of this conventional practice of enslaving the religious other led to the development of a huge corpus of legal documents regulating interaction between Christians and Muslims within both the Latin Christian legal canon and the sharīʿa. The laws structured relationships with those who were considered religious minorities under the other’s sovereignty and those who were slaves bound by a separate set of laws.22 Such religious legal boundaries were repeatedly defined by bishops and ʿulamāʾ alike. Yet, as noted above, the laws intended to structure interactions between Christians or Muslims and their slaves were often transgressed. As will be shown below, although the Spanish colonies were legally prohibited from importing Muslim slaves from West Africa, those engaged in the pursuit of economic gain in the New World freely disregarded such religiously sanctioned prescripts. As Karoline Cook has demonstrated, the Iberian aristocracy often appealed to the Inquisition to provide dispensation for their servants to be used as labour in the New World, even though the Church was concerned about Moriscos who only feigned to have converted to Christianity, because it did not want such infidels polluting the new colonies.23 With the development of seafaring technology, European nations began to explore further afield from the Mediterranean along the West African coast, and ultimately crossed the Atlantic. With this southward and westward expansion, slavery and piracy became, in the words of Catherine Styer, ‘a problem of empire’.24 Muslim and Christian kingdoms began to prey on other seafaring nations and also to invade coastal communities from the Irish coast to the Senegambia. Portuguese and Spanish merchants began raiding the Moroccan coast for slaves during the early part of the 15th century.25 Some of the slaves were returned to Iberia for domestic servitude, while others were transported to colonies in the New World. The most famous Muslim-born Moroccan slave was Estebánico the Black, who eventually accompanied Cabez de Vaca to explore the 21 M. Frederiks, ‘Introduction. Christians, Muslims and empires in the 16th century,’ in CMR 7, 1-14. 22 Tolan, Europe and the Islamic world, pp. 59-60. 23 Cook, Forbidden passages, p. 32. 24 C. Styer, ‘Atlantic slaveries. Britons, Barbary, and the Atlantic world’, in D. Coffman, A. Leonard and W. O’Reilly (eds), The Atlantic world, New York, 2015, p. 173; see also N. Matar, Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689, Miami FL, 2005. 25 M. Gomez, Black crescent. The experience and legacy of African Muslims in the Americas, New York, 2008, p. 8.

56

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

North American south-west.26 The Portuguese raider Gomes Eanes described such successful activity as proof that God was on the side of the Christians and had cursed the Moors. While the Spanish and Portuguese plied the waters of the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa, North African pirates raided Atlantic shores from Britain to the Caribbean. The enslavement of European merchants and sailors by the Barbary pirates under the tutelage of North African Muslim kingdoms of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis and Tripoli became an enduring problem for European nations until the 18th century. According to Styer, as many as 26,000 British sailors and subjects were enslaved by the Barbary states between the 16th and the 18th century.27 As a result, Christian enslavement narratives became a prominent part of the Christian-Muslim encounter throughout this period. Escaped or ransomed British subjects wrote of their ordeals and began to ‘demonize, polarize, and alterize’ Muslims.28 Nabil Matar’s work demonstrates the increasingly frequent appearance of the Turk and Moor in British literature as a result of piracy. Barbary enslavement also impacted upon the Christian images of Islam in the British American colonies. In fact, the Barbary pirates continued to plague the North American colonies long after their independence and, as Britain withdrew its protection of American merchant vessels after the American War of Independence, the first war fought by the newly declared United States was waged against the Barbary States.29 This plague of piracy prompted new genres of American literature. The slave narrative and the novel were introduced and became wildly popular. These stories focused on the struggle between noble white American Christians held in captivity by dark Muslim overlords, which was deemed to be against God’s natural law.30 A journal, of the captivity and sufferings of John Foss, published in 1798, was the earliest first-hand record of the American slave narrative. Like the British literature that repackaged Latin criticisms of Islam, A journal describes the Muslim captors as barbaric and violent.31 26 Gomez, Black crescent, p. 5. 27 Styer, ‘Atlantic slaveries’, p. 177. 28 N. Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery, New York, 1999, p. 12. 29 The best resource for this period is still R. Allison, The crescent obscured. The United States and the Muslim world, 1776-1815, Oxford, 1995. 30 See F. Shaban, Islam and Arabs in early American thought, Durham NC, 1991. 31 P. Baepler, ‘The Barbary captivity narrative in American culture’, Early American Literature 39 (2004) 217-46; and P. Baepler, White slaves, African masters, Chicago IL, 1999.



David D. Grafton

57

An important divergence from this theme was The Algerine captive, published by Royall Tyler in Philadelphia in 1797. A culminating scene in this novel is a debate between the captive Christian Captain Updike Underhill and an Algerian Mullah, which does not follow the commonly held European views of Muḥammad and Islam as uniquely violent in comparison with a pacifistic Jesus and Christianity, but focuses on the immorality of slavery. In response to Captain Underhill’s claim that Christianity has propagated its faith through pure moral and spiritual arguments, the Mullah reminds Underhill of the ‘bloody massacres’ of the Church, the Inquisition and the persecutions of the Moors in Spain. He then remarks, ‘Leave it to the Christians of the West Indies, and the Christians of your southern plantations, to baptize the unfortunate African into your faith, and then use your brother Christians as brutes of the desert.’32 Captain Underhill reluctantly adds that, if the North African Muslims and North American Christians each followed their own religion correctly, they ‘would cease to hate, abominate, and destroy the other’.33 Benjamin Franklin, one of the important early philosophical leaders of the fledgling United States, also publicly chastised American society through the fictitious speech of one Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim for its concern over ‘white’ American captives while refusing to address the morality of its own institution of slavery.34 North African Muslim potentates did not only support piracy on the Mediterranean and the north Atlantic but also engaged in slavery in the Sahel of Africa to make a living. Arab and Berber traders utilised caravan routes to the prosperous West African cities along the coast and in the interior, among them Timbuktu, to engage in slave trading. An important trade developed from the Sudan to the Sahel to increase the economic and military might of the empires.35 Slave raiding was also an important part of international trade along the coast of the Senegambia region. The Muslim kingdoms of Songhay, Dahomey and, later, the Sokoto Caliphate, among others, established extensive slave communities to support their domestic, commercial and military expansions. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 1377), 32 R. Tyler, The Algerine captive; or the life and adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill, six years a prisoner among the Algerines, New York, 2002, pp. 42-53. 33 Tyler, Algerine captive, p. 145. 34 T. Kidd, ‘Is it worse to follow Mahomet than the Devil?’ Early American uses of Islam’, Church History 72 (2003) 766-90. 35 J. Azumah, The legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa. A quest for inter-religious dialogue, Oxford, 2001, pp. 143-4. See also T. Walz and K. Cuno (eds), Race and slavery in the Middle East. Histories of trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt, Sudan and the Ottoman Mediterranean, New York, 2010.

58

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) and Taqī al-Dīn al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442) all record in their writings the presence of extensive slave communities in West Africa.36 By the 19th century, the Sokoto caliphate of Uthmān dan Fodio (d. 1817) had become a supplier of slaves to the Atlantic slave trade. The justification for the enslavement of non-Muslim Africans, or what Robert C. Davis calls ‘faith slavery’, was accepted and outlined.37 Dan Fodio himself had overseen the military jihād that created the caliphate and the enslavement of non-Muslim Africans. While the Hadith tradition and sunna of the Prophet may have encouraged the manumission of slaves, Dan Fodio had written tracts regarding the legal prescriptions and prohibitions of the institution based on Mālikī law. He was clear that the enslavement of fellow Muslims was against the sharīʿa.38 However, the economic opportunities of expanding markets encouraged slavery of any kind.39 The Middle Passage While thousands of Europeans and North Americans were enslaved by the Barbary pirates of North Africa, the numbers pale in comparison with the millions of Africans forced into the international slave market economy. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, western and southern Africa became a virtual repository of goods, including humans for trafficking, and the Atlantic developed into a vital conduit for the slave trade. As the Portuguese began searching for more lucrative trade routes, they came into contact with Muslim and non-Muslim sub-Saharan Africans already engaged in slave trading in the interior.40 With new naval technology enabling navigation further into the unknown, exploration continued down the coast of Africa and across the Atlantic. Colonies were established in the New World, and African labour became vital to sustain the colonial system. The intense work of growing and harvesting sugar cane, coffee and tobacco, among other commodities, meant that slave labour 36 El Hamel, Black Morocco, pp. 126-7. 37 Davis, Holy war and human bondage, p. 13. 38 S. Moumouni, Vie et oeuvre du Cheik Uthmân Dan Fodio, 1754-1817. De l’islam au soufisme, Paris, 2008; I. Sulaiman, The African caliphate. The life work and teachings of Shaykh Usman dan Fodio, London, 2009; D. Tambo, ‘The Sokoto Caliphate slave trade in the nineteenth century’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 9 (1976) 187-217. 39 Azumah, Legacy of Arab Islam, pp. 147-52. 40 A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ‘Before Columbus. Portugal’s African prelude to the Middle Passage and contribution to discourse on race and slavery’, in J. López-Portillo (ed.), Spain, Portugal and the Atlantic frontier of medieval Europe, Burlington VT, 2013, p. 137.



David D. Grafton

59

was required. The development of these sources for the global economy pushed the slave trade to levels never seen before. The colonies in the Americas perfected a structure of human exploitation and labour, which led to the enforced migration and slaughter of millions of Africans over hundreds of years.41 It was from the predominantly Muslim empires of the Wolof of the Senegambia region that the Portuguese and Spanish reaped their first economic benefits from slavery.42 The early colonisers noted that the Fulani Muslim slaves from the Senegambia (who eventually developed a reputation for having a rebellious nature) were different from other Africans, often because of their distinct ability to read and write.43 Several Muslim-led slave revolts on Hispaniola in 1522, Puerto Rico in 1527 and Colombia in 1529, among others, prompted the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to issue a proclamation forbidding African Muslim slaves from being imported into Spanish territories of the New World. The decree was summarily ignored by slave traders, which prompted repeated royal decrees which noted that the ‘Gelofe slaves are arrogant, disobedient, rebellious and incorrigible’.44 It is impossible to know the exact number of Muslims who were enslaved and forced through the horrors of the Middle Passage (the transAtlantic stage of the triangular route from Europe to Africa, across to the Americas and back to Europe) to the colonies of the New World. Nevertheless, ongoing research about African Muslim slaves has uncovered the important histories, presence and contributions of individual Muslims there. Several scholars are extending the field through ongoing research, including Allan Austin, Sylvanie Diouf, Paul E. Lovejoy, Brent Singleton and Richard Brent Turner. Their work on the Muslim slave narratives of 41 For further information on the West African slave trade, see P. Curtin and P. Lovejoy, Africans in bondage. Studies in slavery and the slave trade, Madison WI, 1986; P. Lovejoy, Transformations in slavery. A history of slavery in Africa, New York, 1983; D. Davis, Inhuman bondage. The rise and fall of slavery in the New World, New York, 2006; R. Law, Dahomey and the ending of the trans-Atlantic Slave trade, New York, 2012; R. Law, From slave-trade to legitimate commerce, Cambridge, 2007; P. Manning, Slavery, colonialism and economic growth in Dahomey, 1640-1960, Cambridge, 2004. 42 Gomez, Black crescent, p. 9. 43 Jean-Baptist du Tetre, Histoire générale des isles de S. Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique et autres dans l’Amérique, Paris, 1654, p. 474; André Chevillard, Les desseins de son Éminence de Richelieu pour l’Amérique, Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1659, p. 192; and Ludwig Ferdinand Rømer, Nachrichten von der Küste Guinea, Copenhagen, 1759, English trans. A reliable account of the coast of Guinea (1760), S.A. Wisnes (ed.), Oxford, 2000, p. 28. 44 Gomez, Black crescent, p. 18. See also R. Bazan, ‘Muslim immigration to Spanish America’, MW 56 (1966) 173-87.

60

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, John Mohammed Bath, Abdul Rahman, Omar ibn Said and Abu Bakr al Siddiq have made an important contribution to the understanding of the role played by Muslims in America.45 Lovejoy’s voluminous research on the primary sources of the Atlantic slave trade provides vital information for the study of African Islamic culture and the character and performance of Islam among African slaves.46 In addition, Michael A. Gomez’s seminal work, Black crescent. The experience and legacy of African Muslims in the Americas, and Karoline Cook’s Forbidden passages. Muslims and Moriscos in colonial Spanish America, provide detailed and comprehensive research on Muslim communities in the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British colonies of the Caribbean and South America.47 While the Atlantic slave trade continues to be well researched from various perspectives, including the contributions of African Muslim slaves to slave society in the New World, the specific role of Christian-Muslim relations has only recently been explored. Slavery in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies As noted above, the north and north-west coast of Africa had provided slaves for Spain, Portugal and Italy since the 15th century. However, as the New World became a reality, Portuguese and Spanish merchants became pro-active in the sub-Saharan slave trade to provide further labour for sugar plantations in the West Indies. As far back as the early 16th century, Leo Africanus describes the Portuguese invasion of Azemmouri along the Atlantic coast in 1513 to gather slaves for the new colonies. In fact, it became profitable to include Muslim slaves in mercantile exploration when Alphonse V exempted Portuguese merchants from paying tax on 45 A. Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America, New York, 1997; S. Diouf, Servants of Allah. African Muslims enslaved in the Americas, New York, 201315; P. Lovejoy, The biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua. His passage from slavery to freedom in Africa and America, Princeton NJ, 20072. Of particular interest also are B. Singleton, ‘The Ummah slowly bled. A select bibliography of enslaved African Muslims in the Americas and the Caribbean’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22 (2002) 401-12; R. Turner, ‘African Muslim slaves and Islam in antebellum America’, in J. Hammer and O. Safi (eds), The Cambridge companion to American Islam, New York, 2013, pp. 28-44. 46 Other works by Lovejoy include Ecology and ethnography of Muslim trade in West Africa, Trenton NJ, 2005; Slavery, Islam and diaspora, Trenton NJ, 2009; and Slavery on the frontiers of Islam, Princeton NJ, 2004. 47 See also Gomez, ‘Slavery in the Americas. A survey of the scholarship’, in H. Dodson and C. Palmer (eds), Origins. Schomburg studies on the black experience, East Lansing MI, 2008, 1-41.



David D. Grafton

61

captured ‘Moors’ in 1459.48 Many of these captives were sold to conquistadors, who took them to the New World, the most famous being Estevanico the Moor, purportedly the first African to set foot in Florida.49 In addition to the use of Muslim slaves, however, the Portuguese also employed Muslim and Morisco nautical guides, who could use welldeveloped Islamic scientific navigational techniques. This role of Islamic naval science in the opening up and exploitation of the New World is currently an underdeveloped field of research.50 After the expulsion of Muslims from Iberia in 1492 and the subsequent persecution of the Moriscos by the Catholic Church’s Inquisition, the Spanish conquistadors brought the cultural biases of the Iberian Reconquista with them to the New World, and imagined the newly discovered Americans as being reminiscent of the Moors.51 Among the Spanish, the title mata moros, ‘Moor slayer’, used of St James, who was thought to have appeared to Christian armies as they fought Muslims in Iberia, became a popular name for many newly founded cities in the Spanish territories.52 Spaniards in Mexico who imported Muslim Africans also began to apply new meanings to African words. For example, the term marabout, which commonly referred to a Muslim holy man in north and west Africa, came to be used to mean the devil. The term mandinga, or male, the Muslim-majority African tribal groups, came to be equated with ‘evil’.53 Pejorative terminology was applied to those slaves who exhibited a ‘highly developed culture’ that opposed the Latin Catholic culture of the Spaniards in New Spain.54 The conquistadors of the new Catholic colonies were not interested in converting either the indigenous Americans or the African slaves, who were viewed as less than human. The pleas of the 16th-century Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who advocated on behalf of the enslaved, fell on deaf ears. A zealous religious Catholic cultural identity and a fear of potential problems from some educated Muslim community leaders prompted the colonisers to impose exacting punishments on the 48 El Hamel, Black Morocco, p. 137. 49 See J. Terrell, Estivanico the Black, Los Angeles CA, 1968. 50 J.J. Saunders, The Muslim world on the eve of Europe’s expansion, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1966, pp. 101-3; W. Brice, ‘Early Muslim sea-charts’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 109 (1977) 53-61, p. 54. 51 Bazan, ‘Muslim immigration to Spanish America’, p. 174. 52 Tolan, Europe and the Islamic world, pp. 43, 48. 53 Gomez, Black crescent, p. 27. 54 Gomez, Black crescent, p. 27. See also G. Aguirre Beltrán, La población negra de México. Estudio etnohistórico, Mexico City, 1993, pp. 105-7.

62

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

enslaved. In fact, Muslim slaves were often blamed for sowing the seeds of insurrection, in Hispaniola in 1522 and Haiti from 1751-7, among other places. Between 1815 and 1835, a significant number of Hausa Muslims were the ring-leaders of several rebellions, especially in the revolt in the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1835.55 After some rebellions, Charles V forbade the importing of Muslim slaves into Spanish territories in 1530, and finally ordered the expulsion of all Moors from the Spanish territories of New World in 1543.56 Unlike the previous expulsion of Muslims from Spain, these dictates were not carried out in any systematic fashion. Slavery in the British colonies of the Caribbean and North America While ongoing research continues to reveal further information about the histories of Muslim slaves and freed Muslims in the New World, primary sources that deal with Christian-Muslim relations in the British colonies of the Caribbean and North America have been known for some time. Muslim slaves often became a source of fascination for some Protestant slave owners and missionaries working among slaves, because they were considered to be of a different ilk from their African compatriots who followed African traditional religions. This was mainly because the owners and missionaries discovered that these Muslims were educated and literate, and could read and write Arabic.57 Their educational backgrounds led in several cases to their being manumitted and repatriated to Africa, the most famous example being Abdul Rahman Ibrahim ibn Sori, ‘the Prince’.58 The freed slave Mohammad Sisei, also known as John Mohammad Bath, led the Muslim community of Trinidad to petition King William IV of England for emancipation. Several of his letters are known, though there is no indication that the petition received a response.59 Autobiographical African Muslim slave material is still very scant. Allan Austin has noted that this major lack of records by Muslim slaves and early secondary slave literature demonstrates the ‘ignorance of Africa 55 Gomez, Black crescent, pp. 105-10. 56 Bazan, ‘Muslim immigration to Spanish America’, pp. 176-80. 57 A. Alryyes (ed.), A Muslim American slave. The life of Omar ibn Said, Madison WI, 2011. 58 T. Alford, Prince among slaves, New York, 1977. 59 Gomez, Black crescent, pp. 70-9.



David D. Grafton

63

in general and of Muslims in particular’ of this time.60 Austin’s work is still one of the best starting places for analysing the available historical records. If the autobiographical material of enslaved African Muslims is difficult to find, the biographical material is difficult to evaluate, being influenced by the intentions and assumptions of both the biographers and their American and British readers, who were consuming these narratives. Austin remarks that the historical record is more often than not ‘the creation of romantic-white and militant-Christian wishful thinking’.61 For example, enslaved and freed Muslims often humoured well-meaning missionary abolitionists or other ignorant Christians when explaining their mysterious religion and culture. An immigrant to North America from Salzburg, Lutheran Pastor John Martin Boltzius, referred to the presence of ‘Moors’ in the Carolinas in the mid-18th century without revealing any clear understanding of Islam or particular Muslim piety in the lives of these slaves.62 The most famous case of this Christian curiosity was Abdul Rahman, who was asked to compose the Lord’s Prayer in Arabic, and blithely responded by writing out the Fātiḥa (the opening chapter of the Qur’an) for the unsuspecting American Christian audience. Another slave, Omar ibn Said, also wrote passages from both the Bible and the Qur’an in Arabic. As stories of these Africans made their way through North American Christian circles, they prompted some to believe that they had converted to Christianity, and also encouraged further support for foreign missions. The role of evangelism among slaves was a controversial topic among Americans, both theologically and practically. Slave owners needing to justify their position thought of their slaves as ‘non-human’ and so did not see the point of preaching to Africans, who were under the ‘Hamitic curse’. Other slavers knew that slaves who became Christians and could read the Bible would be potential troublemakers among the slave community. The limited information about the part played by faith in the lives of slaves has led some to question whether the apparent conversion of at least some was no more than taqiyya, or dissimulation, adopted in the hope of preserving their lives and gaining repatriation.63 Austin also points out that Islamic religious and cultural remnants within the postemancipation African-American community have often been subsumed 60 Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America, p. 18. 61 Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America, p. 445. 62 M. Gutzler, Lutheran Salzburgers and Muslim African Moors. The earliest evidence of Lutheran-Muslim interaction in North America, Berkeley CA, 2006, p. 81. 63 Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America, p. 459.

64

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

under a dominant American Christian culture. Islamic roots and identities are now being analysed in the growing literature of African-American cultures of the American South.64 This interesting mixture of Christianity and Islam among the enslaved and freed communities of Africans can be seen through the life of Edward Wilmont Blyden. Blyden was befriended by the Rev. John P. Knox, who supported Blyden’s secular and religious education. Blyden’s emigration to Liberia, along with other former slaves, led to his influential work, Christianity, Islam and the Negro race. In this work, Blyden argued that African-American Christians had been subjected to a Europeanised Christianity that dominated them, whereas the Islam he experienced in Liberia and Sierra Leone provided an authentic African identity. It was this repudiation of ‘white’ Christianity that would draw many African Americans to revert to Islam throughout the 20th century.65 The stories of these educated Muslim slaves were often used by Christian abolitionists, who argued that they showed ‘that the natives of some parts of Africa are not so utterly ignorant as they are represented to be’, and that such Muslims did not therefore deserve to be enslaved.66 For example, the story of Muhammad Kaba Saghanugha was communicated by the British civil servant Richard Madden, who championed the abolitionist cause both in Britain and in the early American republic. It was abolitionists like Madden who saw in the educated Muslim slaves an opportunity to refute the slave owners’ claim that Africans were too ‘brutish’ to be considered as free subjects.67 Abolitionists: the Bible and the Qur’an This essay began with a review of the appeals to scripture and tradition that laid the foundation for the justification of African enslavement. It is important then to note that, by the 19th century, there was a movement 64 Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America, p. 18. See also M. Gomez, Exchanging our country marks. The transformation of African identities in the colonial and antebellum South, Chapel Hill NC, 1998, and P.D. Morgan, African American life in the Georgia low country. The Atlantic world and the Gullah Geechee, Athens GA, 2010. 65 E. Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro race, London, 1887. See the discussion of the importance of Blyden in S. Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican. Looking toward the third resurrection, New York, 2005, pp. 62-6. 66 R. Madden, A twelvemonth’s residence in the West Indies, during the transition from slavery to apprenticeship, Philadelphia PA, 1835, vol. 2, p. 137. 67 A.J. Raboteau, Slave religion, New York, 2004, p. 100.



David D. Grafton

65

among Christians and Muslims alike to use their own scriptural traditions to argue specifically against slavery. Protest against slavery on Christian religious grounds began with Bartolomé de las Casas (d. 1566), the Dominican friar who came to reject the harsh treatment of the indigenous peoples and slavery in the Americas. In the 17th century, John Fox, leader of the Society of Friends (Quakers), also objected to slavery on the basis of Christian religious principles. After the Great Awakening of the 17th century, there was a groundswell of support for the outlawing of the slave trade based on an argument that the practice was fundamentally against the belief in the creation of man in God’s image, as found in Genesis 1. In 1816, the Presbyterian minister George Bourne argued in The Book and slavery are irreconcilable that God’s delivery of the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt proved God’s clear abhorrence of slavery.68 The Society of Friends formally opposed slavery in the colonies as early as 1688. The Anglican Church’s Church Missionary Society, and other mission agencies, later began to pressurise the governments in the United Kingdom and in the American colonies to oppose what they saw as an abominable practice, and the English Methodist John Wesley also helped to sway public opinion through the publication of Thoughts on slavery in 1774.69 The British Parliament finally relented and abolished the slave trade in British territories in 1807. Throughout the early part of the 19th century, American abolitionists from New England Congregationalist communities began to speak out against the evils of slavery. Although the American colonies made it illegal to import slaves after 1808, it was not until 1863 that American slaves were emancipated by President Abraham Lincoln. However, the abolitionists faced broadbased acquiescence to slavery among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians and other Reformed Church leaders in North America.70 One of the most important Reformed responses to this social issue was from the historian Philip Schaaf. Schaaf’s Slavery and the Bible, a tract for our times deplored the institution of slavery as unjust, but recognised that it was the reality of human existence in a sinful world after the Garden of Eden. Schaaf recognised the ‘curse of Noah’ as an actual punishment passed down through the generations. While the African slaves certainly 68 Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, war and women, pp. 38-43. 69 S. Jakobsson, Am I not a man and a brother? British missions and the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in West Africa and the West Indies 1786-1838, Lund, 1972, pp. 40-1. 70 R.S. Newman, The transformation of American Abolitionism. Fighting slavery in the early republic, Chapel Hill NC, 2002, p. 16.

66

enforced migration: an atlantic narrative

deserved to be treated fairly, they were ‘wholly unprepared [for emancipation] which could be disastrous for them’. Rather, slaveholders were to be beneficent in their lordship and provide the slaves with ‘proper moral and religious training’. He concluded, ‘This is the Bible view and the Bible remedy of slavery.’71 A small Islamic anti-slavery movement began as part of the modern political reforms of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Tanẓimāt. Sultan Mahmud II promulgated several laws curtailing the enslavement of war captives and on at least one occasion ordered that Christian prisoners should be freed. Mahmud’s successor, Sultan Abdülmecid, began a wideranging series of reforms in 1839, bring penal codes that forbade slavery.72 It was at this time that reformist Muslim authors began to argue that the Qur’an provides strict limits for slavery, if not intending to abolish it altogether. The most famous Muslim reformer to critique slavery was the Indian Sayyid Ahmed Khan. Khan’s 1893 work Abolition of slavery argued through an interpretation of Q 47:4 that God intended slavery to be gradually repealed as a practice among the Arabs, following the conquest of Mecca.73 Another minority Muslim voice from the 19th century was the Moroccan Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Nāṣirī, who wrote a treatise against slavery. While he was chiefly alarmed at the wholesale human trafficking of African Muslims, he wrote that slavery was ‘one of the foulest and gravest evils perpetuated upon God’s religion’. He recognised that slavery existed during the time of Muḥammad and that the social context in which the revelations of the Qur’an were revealed was different from his own time. Al-Nāṣirī argued that Muḥammad worked within the social and cultural context of his time to place restraints on slavery. However, ‘the reason in the Holy Law which existed in the time of the Prophet and the pious forefathers for enslaving people does not exist today’.74 This view has been supported by the modern progressive scholar Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naʿim, who has argued that, while the Qur’an recognises slavery and that medieval sharīʿa regulated its existence, it is now incumbent upon Muslim scholars to recognise the ‘modern and humane principles of Islamic Law’ and to ban it altogether.75 71 P. Schaaf, Slavery and the Bible. A tract for our times, Chambersburg PA, 1861, p. 32. 72 W.G. Clarence-Smith, Islam and the abolition of slavery, New York, 2006, pp. 104-6. 73 J.M.S. Baljon, The reforms and religious ideas of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Leiden, 1949, p. 28. See also Q 2:177 and 5:89. 74 Azumah, Legacy of Arab Islam, p. 153. 75 Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naʿim, Toward an Islamic reformation. Civil liberties, human rights, and international law, Syracuse NY, 1990, p. 173.



David D. Grafton

67

Another modern response building upon this Reformist view is that of Chouki El Hamel. El Hamel has argued that, because of the Prophet’s vision of an umma gathered together from many different ‘nations and tribes’ (Q 49:13), as well as the prominent role of Bilāl, Muḥammad’s Ethiopian companion, any justification for the enslavement of specific races or ethnicities is an alien concept in Islam.76 Conclusion The numbers of African Muslims who were enslaved in the course of the Atlantic slave trade is still debated, as the primary sources are scant. The long-term cultural impact of African Muslims on emancipated slave culture in the Americas is also still being excavated and explored. Even so, it is important to acknowledge that African Muslim slaves who were emancipated continued on as indentured servants in the southern colonies of North America in the midst of a ‘slave religion’ that utilised African religious traditions as a protest against dominant American Christian culture.77 The great migration of African-Americans from the rural areas of the south to the factories of Chicago, Toledo and Detroit in the early part of the 20th century laid the foundations for the assertion of a Black Muslim identity that incorporated a renewed sense of protest against a predominantly White Christian culture. Islam was appropriated by ‘Blackamericans’ as part of their North American identity.78 The history of slavery in the New World is still very much an issue that extensively affects contemporary Christian-Muslim relations in the Americas.

76 El Hamel, Black Morocco, p. 64. 77 See A. Raboteau, Slave religion, the ‘invisible institution’ in the antebellum, New York, 2004. 78 Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican, p. 43.

Works on Christian-Muslim relations 1600-1700

South Asia

Map 1. Indian Ocean littoral

Jan Huygen van Linschoten Date of Birth Probably 1563 Place of Birth Haarlem Date of Death 8 February 1611 Place of Death Enkhuizen

Biography

In 1563, at a time when Portuguese hegemony over the waters of the East Indies was evident and the northern part of the Habsburg Netherlands was on the brink of a fierce revolt against the Spanish crown (15681648), Jan Huygen van Linschoten was born in Haarlem as Jan Huygen. As a child, he had a talent for foreign languages and a strong desire to travel. In about 1579, at the age of 16, he travelled first to Seville and later, in 1580, after Philip II conquered Portugal, he continued his journey to the west in the wake of the Spanish army. In Portugal, he survived the plague and started a financial and commercial business. In this capacity, Huygen was employed as clerk at the office of João Vicente da Fonseca, who was appointed in 1582 as archbishop of the East Indic Patriarchy. Huygen sailed for Goa with da Fonseca on 8 April 1583. While in Goa, he adopted the name Jan Huygen van Linschoten. He started to collect all kinds of information about trade, prices, gemstones and the military and maritime strength of the Portuguese, as well as customs and habits of life in Goa and stories about the populations of the coastal regions. He also encountered Dirck Gerritszoon (1544-1608), who used Goa as his base for dealings with the East and who supplied Huygen with information about China and Japan. Huygen produced detailed descriptions of the trade routes, drew maps and made notes on local populations, their customs and religions, based on narratives and guide books that he copied from the Portuguese. Other information that he collected about geography and ethnicity is based on earlier Portuguese publications. In 1587, the archbishop wanted to return to Portugal to report to the church, but he died during the journey. After da Fonseca’s death, Huygen was appointed to look after the archbishop’s belongings, but he decided to return home. In 1589, he set off to sail back to Lisbon, carrying a vast amount of information with him

74

jan huygen van linschoten

about the Portuguese trade routes. During a stop-over at St Helena, he met Gerrit van Afhuijsen from Antwerp, who told him about the spice trade. At the next stop, the Azores, he found himself forced to remain for two years. It was not until 1592 that he found an opportunity to sail back to Lisbon; that same year, he travelled to the Dutch Republic with a fleet of Dutch freighters and settled in Enkhuizen. He transferred his loyalty from Catholicism to adopt a pro-republican anti-Spanish stance. In Enkhuizen, he was encouraged to edit his annotations and publish them as a book. In 1594, he sailed with Willem Barentsz on an ­expedition to the north, hoping to find a northern route to China and Japan. The voyage ended in failure, and was followed by a further failed Arctic expedition in 1595. That same year, Huygen published Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten (‘Travel notes of Portuguese navigation into the Orient’), which contained a vast quantity of sailing directions. It was followed one year later, in 1596, by Itinerario, which provided information about Portuguese trade routes, the inhabitants of the coasts, and copies of guide books. In 1597, he published Beschryvinghe van de gantsche custe van Guinea, Manicongo, Angola ende tegen over de Cabo de S. Augustijn in Brasilien, de eyghenschappen des gheheelen Oceanische Zees (‘Description of the entire coast of Guinea, Manicongo, Angola and the Cabo de St Augustus in Brazil, the characteristics of the entire oceanic sea’). Jan Huygen van Linschoten died in Enkhuizen on 8 February 1611.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary R. van Gelder, J. Permentier and V. Roeper, Souffrir pour parvenir. De wereld van Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Haarlem, 1998 C. Koeman, ‘Jan Huygen van Linschoten’, Revista da Universidade de Coimbra 32 (1985) 27-47 R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Portretten van de vrouw van Jan Huygen van Linschoten en van haar afstammelingen’, Jaarboek Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 39 (1985) 111-221 A. van der Moer, Een zestiende-eeuwse Hollander in het verre Oosten en het Hoge Noorden. Leven, werken, reizen en avonturen van Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Amsterdam, 1979 S. Purchas, Early travels in India, 16th and 17th centuries. Reprints of rare and curious narratives of old travellers in India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Delhi, 1974



jan huygen van linschoten

75

J. McKew Parr, Jan van Linschoten, the Dutch Marco Polo, New York, 1964 G.A. van Es and G.S. Overdiep, ‘Reisverhalen over de wereldzeeen naar OostIndie’, in van Es and Overdiep (eds), Geschiedenis van de letterkunde der Nederlanden, part 4, De letterkunde van Renaissance en Barok in de 17. eeuw, Brussels, 1948 W.J. van Balen, Naar de Indische wonderwereld met Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Amsterdam, 1942 M. Visser, Cornelis Taemsz, Vaygats ofte de Straet van Nassau. Ode tot lof van Jan Huygen van Linschoten, The Hague, 1942 N.G. van Kampen, Leven van beroemde Nederlanders, vol. 3. Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Haarlem, 1840

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Itinerario, ‘Jan Huighen van Linschoten his discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies’ Date 1596 Original Language Dutch Description The original text of Jan Huygen’s Itinerario (in full, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien 1579-1592, inhoudende een corte beschryvinghe der selver landen ende zee-custen) was published in 1596, and covers 160 pages, throughout which the author regularly refers to Muslim-Christian relations. The work is an account of Muslims living on the coasts of Mozambique, Ethiopia, India in general and more specifically in the Malabar region and Goa. The work echoes various stereotypes of the time, although there is also a serious attempt to deal with what Huygen observes as the customs and beliefs of ‘Machometisten’. He often writes in a relatively neutral fashion about those who ‘obtain the law of Mahomet’, which gives Muslims a specific character. He refers briefly in passing to Mecca as the place where ‘the body of Machomet hangs in an iron chest / coffin’ ( yseren kis), a medieval European fancy. Huygen emphasises that Muslims are ‘hostile towards all Portuguese and Christians’ (p. 53). He also comments on the rise of the Safavid dynasty in Persia and describes Shāh (Xa) Ismāʿīl (who came to the throne in 1501) as the greatest and most powerful lord of Asia. The rise of his dynasty led to an ‘enduring enmity and bloody war’, Huygen writes, referring to the Shīʿa-Sunnī conflict in the 16th century, which also led to

76

jan huygen van linschoten

a ‘bloody war between the Turks and the Indians on religious matters’ and about ‘the explanation of the Qur’an’ (p. 118). Writing about India, Huygen refers to Arabs, many of whom ‘follow the law of Mahomet while some are Christians, in their own manner’ (op haer manier). More specifically, he describes the situation in Goa as greatly pluriform and multicultural, with Jews, Christians of all kinds, ‘Bramene’ (the term ‘Hinduism’ was still unknown at the time), and Arab Muslims (Arabbissche Machometisten), who visit Goa as traders and were the old trading power of the Orient before the Portuguese conquered India (p. 179). This is the reason, Huygen continues, referring to Islam, why the Orient is infected with this ‘devilish sect’ (duyvelsche secte), and this is – as a consequence – the reason why the Gospel is not much disseminated or accepted in that region. ‘Due to that pestilential sect and the Machometic opinion that was rooted thoroughly and that corrupted the whole body’ (p. 179), Christian mission was not very s­ uccessful. Further on in the first part of Itinerario, Huygen describes a mosque: ‘The Mores have their Meskytas, where they do their prayers. Above the church (Kercke) there are many lofts and galleries where the children learn their catechisms before they go to church; they wash their feet – there is always a tank with water beside the church for that purpose. They always leave their shoes outside before going in. Upon entering, they fall flat on their face and make several futile gestures with uplifted arms and hands and feet. They are circumcised like the Jews, and eat no pork. [. . .] In their churches there are no statues nor figures, except for some erected stones with engraved Chaldic letters from their Alcoran’ (pp. 187-8). Huygen continues his account of the customs of the ‘Machometisten’ by adding a personal story (which is absent from the Latin translation). He narrates that he and a Portuguese companion wanted to see the inside of a mosque (die Machometiste kercke) and witness the Muslim way of praying, so they visited a mosque just outside the city limits. (The Portuguese did not allow Muslims to build their mosques within the city, but they were free to worship outside.) Huygen and his companion refused the doorkeeper’s request to take off their shoes, and were thus denied entry. However, the doorkeeper let them look inside, allowing them to stand on the doorstep and opening some windows to give them a better view. As they stood there, Huygen’s Portuguese companion asked the doorkeeper about God and the saints because he could see the place was empty ( ydel). The doorkeeper answered that they did not pray to wood and stone, but to the living God who is in heaven. ‘You Portuguese Christians’, he went on, ‘are like the pagans because you worship statues



jan huygen van linschoten

77

which you have made yourselves and you give honour to them, an honour that only the living, almighty God deserves.’ At this, his companion became so angry that he started to rant and rave, uttering harsh words and attracting an audience, so they had to leave. These ‘Mores’, Huygen concludes, are traders and, although they live among the Portuguese, they are their arch-enemies. He reiterates that they are also the main reason why so few Indians convert to Christianity. There is certainly some ambiguity in Huygen’s account of this story (Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam, p. 26). Although he clearly indicates that Muslims are enemies of Christianity (pp. 53, 179, 188), echoing a prevalent 16th-century view, he also gives a sober and sometimes respectful account of how Muslims live and behave. He uses typically Christian terms to understand Islam, such as ‘church’ and ‘catechisms’. Furthermore, he does not assess the doorkeeper negatively in his narrative of the attempted visit to the mosque, but recounts a critique of Portuguese Christianity that could also be heard among antiCatholic Protestant circles in Enkhuizen, where he edited his Itinerario. Significance Huygen van Linschoten’s Itinerario became the ‘principal guidebook for foreign penetration into Asia Portuguesa’ (Koeman, ‘Jan Huygen van Linschoten’, p. 30). His writings also became highly important for Dutch and English voyages to the East Indies, which would lead to the breakdown of Portuguese hegemony in the region and its opening up to the VOC. Itinerario was very quickly recognised as an invaluable source of information. Dutch plans for a first expedition into the East Indies accelerated its publication. After being published in 1596 (Reysgheschrift had been published a year earlier), it was translated into English (1598), German (1598), Latin (1599) and French (1610). It was used as a travel guide on many ships sailing to the East and continued to be an authoritative work until the end of the 17th century. Its account of Goa, in particular, is of great historical value for its detailed description of daily life at the end of the 16th century. Publications Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien inhoudende een corte beschryvinghe der selver landen ende zee-custen, Amsterdam, 1596; Hbks/F 117 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum)

78

jan huygen van linschoten

W. Phillips (trans.), Iohn Huighen van Linschoten his discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies. Devided into foure bookes, London, 1598 (English trans.); STC 15691 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Theil der orientalischen Indien. Erstlich in Hollandischer Sprache beschrieben durch Joan Hugo von Linschooten, Frankfurt am Mayn, 1598 (German trans.); Res/2 It.coll. 6-1/2#2 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Navigatio ac Itenerarium Iohannis Hugonis Linscotani in Orientalem sive lusitanorum Indiam, Amsterdam, 1599 (Latin trans.) Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Histoire de la navigation Iean Hugues de Linschot hollandais, Amsterdam, 1610 (part 1), 1614 (parts 2 and 3), (French trans.); BNF bpt6k84373m (digitalised version available through BNF, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k84373m) W. Phillips (trans.), The voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies. From the old English translation of 1598. The first book, containing his description of the East, London, 1885, New York, 1970 (English trans.; repr. of 1598 edition) Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario. Voyage ofte Schipvaert van Jan Huygen van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien 1597-1592, The Hague, 1910, 19342 Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario. Voyage ofte schipvaert van Jan Huygen van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien 1579-1592, The Hague, 1956 Studies A. Saldanha, ‘The Itineraries of geography. Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Itinerario and Dutch expeditions to the Indian Ocean, 1594-1602’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101 (2011) 149-77 K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts, 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 2006 A. Pos, ‘A stranger’s testimony. Some of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s views on and from Goa compared with Portugese sources’, Itinerario 28 (2004) 117-34 E. van den Boogaart, Civil and corrupt Asia. Image and text in the Itinerario and Icones of Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Chicago IL, 2003



jan huygen van linschoten

79

E. van den Boogaart, ‘Heathendom and civility in the Historia Indiae Orientalis. The adaption by Johan Theodor and Johan Israel de Bry of the edifying series of plates from Linschoten’s Itinerario’, in J. de Jong et al. (eds), Het exotische verbeeld 1550-1950. Picturing the exotic 1550-1950. Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek 53 (2003) 71-105 E. van den Boogaart, Het verheven en verdorven Azië. Woord en beeld in het Itinerario en de Icones van Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Leiden, 2000 A. Pos, ‘Jan Huygen van Linschoten als taalpionier’, Onze Taal 66 (1997) 219-21 Koeman, ‘Jan Huygen van Linschoten’ H. Houwens Post, ‘De Lusitanismen in de Itinerario van Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563-1611)’, De Nieuwe Taalgids 55 (1962) 161-71 Lucien van Liere

Vida e Acções de Matias de Albuquerque, Capitão e Viso-Rei da Índia ‘Life and achievements of Matias de Albuquerque, Captain and Viceroy of India’ Date Probably between 1598 and 1609 Original Language Portuguese Description Vida e Acções de Matias de Albuquerque is a chronicle written after the end of Matias de Albuquerque’s period of government, and was an attempt to restore his image after he was arrested on his return to Portugal in 1598. The author was probably Miguel de Lacerda, and it is not known whether the chronicle was written at Albuquerque’s request. There is also uncertainty about its date of composition, although this is likely to have been during the final years of Albuquerque’s life. The chronicle is divided into two parts consisting of 31 chapters and 37 chapters, and covering 106 pages and 91 pages, respectively, in Vignati’s edition (pp. 139-245 and pp. 269-360). The first part presents Albuquerque’s career, from his birth to his final return to Portugal, while the second covers his two periods of government in India, with a particular focus on the battle of Chaul in 1593, considered by the chronicler to be his greatest military victory. Matias de Albuquerque was born in Lisbon in 1547, the son of Manuel de Albuquerque, Captain of Mina (Africa), and Camila de Noronha. His education was entrusted to his uncle, Afonso de Albuquerque, son and namesake of the renowned governor of India. Matias spent part of his youth at court with the young King Sebastião. He first left for India in 1566, where he fought against pirates and corsairs along the Malabar coast and took part in the defence of Goa. He accompanied captain Diogo de Meneses, an experienced warrior and later governor of India (1576-7), sharing his military successes and misfortunes. These included a defeat in 1571 at the battle of Chaliyam, which ended with the occupation of the town by the forces of Calicut. Owing to his reputation as a courageous soldier, in particular after losing his index finger in 1569 in battle against pirates and corsairs, but



vida e acções de matias de albuquerque

81

also due to his closeness to King Sebastião, in 1573 Albuquerque was appointed to the important position of captain of Hormuz. The following year, he returned to Portugal, but left again in 1576 with the commission to succeed Diogo de Meneses as governor of Malacca. On his arrival, Albuquerque defeated the Acehnese fleet decisively, and during the second government of Viceroy Luís de Ataíde (1578-81) he planned to attack Aceh itself. To this end, he sailed to India to request men and ships, and on his way he played a decisive part in freeing Colombo, which was under siege by the King of Sitawaka. In honour of this success, Viceroy Ataíde organised a special reception for him in Goa, although misunderstandings led to Albuquerque returning to Portugal. It is possible that he was harbouring an ambition to succeed the viceroy, but in March 1581, when the viceroy died, Albuquerque was instead appointed captain of Malabar. In 1584, he finally took over the captaincy of Hormuz, a position he held until 1587. On 18 January 1590, King Philip I appointed Albuquerque Viceroy of India. His government was marked by a number of important events, among them the siege of Chaul from April to September 1593, which ended with the capture of the Morro, a strategically important promontory across the river from the town. Albuquerque’s government is generally portrayed as efficient, and is known for the work of the chronicler Diogo do Couto, as keeper of the Goa Archives, created by order of King Philip I. Although Albuquerque requested a successor from the end of 1592 because of unpopular orders sent by the king, his government only ended in 1597. On his return to Portugal, the new king, Philip II, ordered his arrest at his farm in Santa Amaro. He died in 1609. Vida e Acções de Matias de Albuquerque contains many details that illustrate Albuquerque’s relationship with Muslims during the various phases of his career. Before becoming viceroy, he is noted for his courage in adverse circumstances, when in 1576-7 he defeated the Muslim fleet of the sultan of Aceh (Part 1, ch. 6). The account of his captaincy of Hormuz mentions his public support for the conversion to Christianity of one of the king’s daughters-in-law, a particularly dangerous attitude considering the king’s opposition. The narrative notes that he also encouraged the conversion of a brother of the king (Part 1, ch. 14). In many instances, the chronicle emphasises Albuquerque’s efforts to convert Muslims (Part 1, ch. 27). The work documents similar attempts during his time as viceroy of India, notably his well-publicised decision to establish an annual procession to mark the ‘miraculous’ victory in Chaul against the Muslim

82

vida e acções de matias de albuquerque

forces of the sultan of Ahmadnagar, thus ensuring that this event would never be forgotten (Part 2, ch. 35). Significance As a means of presenting Albuquerque in the best light to a Portuguese readership, the author of this chronicle gives prominence to his struggles against Muslim enemies. Thus, although his exploits in Ceylon were historically significant for the Portuguese presence in the island, greater emphasis is given in the chronicle to the fighting in Chaul, which was against the Muslim sultan of Ahmadnagar. Here, Albuquerque is portrayed as implacably resistant to any concessions to the enemy. The same applies to the account of his time as captain of Hormuz, where he continued the policy that had been initiated by his uncle, Afonso de Albuquerque, in 1515 of supporting all Muslims who wished to convert to Christianity, and also to the account of his establishing an annual procession to commemorate the victory over the Muslims in Chaul. The chronicle shows that its author made a strategic decision, independently it seems of any formal approval by Albuquerque himself, to emphasise the anti-Muslim aspects of Albuquerque’s career, knowing that this would contribute to restoring his image. Publications MS Évora, Biblioteca Pública – codex XV-1-13 (probably before 1609) MS Paris, BNP – codex 482 (probably before 1609) MS Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional – Fundo Geral codex 482 (1749) A. Vignati, ‘Vida e acções de Mathias de Albuquerque, Capitão e VisoRei da Índia’, Mare Liberum 15 (1998) 139-245; 17 (1999) 269-360 Studies N. Vila-Santa, ‘Entre o Reino e o Império. A carreira político-militar de D. Luís de Ataíde (1516-1581)’, Lisbon, 2015 (PhD Diss. Instituto de Ciências Sociais/Câmara Municipal de Peniche, Lisbon) N. Vila-Santa, art. ‘Matias de Albuquerque’, in Enciclopédia Virtual da Expansão Portuguesa; http://www.fcsh.unl.pt/cham/eve/ Z. Biedermann, ‘A aprendizagem de Ceilão. A presença portuguesa em Sri Lanka entre estratégia talassocrática e planos de conquista territorial (1506-1598)’, Lisbon, 2005 (PhD Diss. University of Lisbon) S. Subrahmanyam, ‘ “The life and actions of Mathias de Albuquerque (1547-1609)”. A Portuguese source for Deccan history’, Portuguese Studies 11 (1995) 62-77



vida e acções de matias de albuquerque

83

M.M. Oliveira Ferreira, D. Francisco da Gama, vice-rei da Índia, 15961600. Subsídios biográficos: o seu governo e a sua época à luz da correspondência oficial, Coimbra, 1971 J. Wicki, ‘Matias de Albuquerque, 16º vice-rei da Índia, 1591-1597’, in IV Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa, Lisbon, 1985, 1-22 Nuno Vila-Santa

Jerome Xavier Jerónimo Javier, Jerónimo Ezpeleta y Goñi Date of Birth 1549 Place of Birth Beire, near Olite, Navarra Date of Death 27 June 1617 Place of Death Goa

Biography

Jerome Xavier was descended from the Ezpeletas family, which had ties to the name Xavier through Jerome’s paternal grandmother Ana de Jasso, the sister of St Francis Xavier. In 1617, before his 19th birthday, Jerome was admitted to the Society of Jesus, and exchanged his surnames Ezpeleta and Goñi for Xavier as an act of devotion to Francis Xavier. After taking his first simple vows in the province of Toledo in 1571, he completed his studies in philosophy and began studying theology at the University of Alcalá. In 1575, he was ordained priest. In January 1580, following his third year of Jesuit spiritual training in Villarejo de Fuentes (1579), he left for Portugal (Évora) to learn Portuguese, en route to Asia. In September 1581, he arrived in Goa, where he was entrusted with instructing the novices, a role that allowed him to re-introduce Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual exercises to the Indian province. On 13 January 1584, Xavier took his four perpetual solemn vows as he was named Rector of the College of Baçaim, and then, shortly afterwards, Rector of Cochín College (1586-92). At Cochín College, he was particularly attentive to the St Thomas Christians, Indians who had been converted in an earlier time by the Church of Mesopotamia. Xavier asked Rome to provide Chaldean books, and opposed excessive disciplinary or liturgical latinisation of the Oriental Christians under his care. In the following years, he was the Jesuit Superior at the Professed House of Goa, a key position in the missionary network in East Asia. Many of the Portuguese Jesuits regarded Xavier, the ‘Castilian’, with a degree of distrust, making it hard for him to fulfil the duties the position entailed. Eventually, in order to carry out his work effectively, he had to leave Goa, taking the position of Superior in the Mughal Empire mission. Accompanied by Father Manuel Pinheiro and Brother Bento de Góis, he travelled to Lahore, where the Emperor Akbar was spending



jerome xavier

85

a brief period in residence. In May 1595, the emperor and his advisor Abū l-Faz̤l ʿAllāmī, who were interested in exchanging ideas and suggestions regarding religious matters, extended a warm welcome to the three members of the Jesuit mission. At the beginning of their stay, Jerome Xavier made considerable efforts to learn Persian, the language used in the court. Overwhelmed by the itinerant court life – Kashmir in May-November 1597; Deccan in 1599-1600; Breampur in 1600; Agra in 1601 – Xavier fell ill on several occasions. He nonetheless continued to pursue his apologetic works. In spite of the many obstacles he had to face, he was able to finish his masterpiece, Fuente (o Libro) de vida, in 1600. He had hoped for the support of the heir to the throne, Prince Salīm, but when the prince was crowned as Jahāngīr he surprised Xavier by restoring Sunnī Muslim orthodoxy, which had diminished in importance during his father’s reign. This notwithstanding, the following years saw the tradition of inter-religious dialogue re-established. Jerome Xavier played an essential role as diplomatic intermediary between the Mughal Empire and the Hispanic-Portuguese monarchy. Whilst he was unable to avoid conflict between these two powers in 1614, he was instrumental in the peace negotiations of 1615. His diplomatic activity also encompassed limiting and counteracting the incipient English influence in the Mughal Empire. In the first months of 1616, he returned to Goa and took up the role of rector at the College of São Paulo. He died mysteriously on 27 June 1617, burnt to death in a fire in his room. Xavier wrote or contributed to a number of works on Christianity written for Akbar and the Mughal court (see Sidarus, ‘Adab al-Saltanat by Jerome Xavier’, pp. 86-7; Camps, Jerome Xavier and the Muslims of the Mugul Empire, pp. 13-49; R. Streit, Bibliotheca missionum, vol. 4, Aachen, 1928, pp. 285-7; C. Sommervogel, A. and A. de Backer, art. ‘Xavier, Jérôme’, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, Liège, 1861, cols 133740). Among these are the following, some extant, others possibly preserved in unknown locations in India: Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ (‘Mirror of holiness and history of the Messiah’), written in Portuguese and translated into Persian by ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī in 1602, published in a bilingual Latin-Persian edition: Dāstān-i Masīḥ, Historia Christi Persice conscripta (Leiden, 1638); Dāstān-i davāzdah havāriyān talāmīdān-i ḥadrat-i ʿĪsā (‘Stories of the Twelve Apostles, the disciples of the Lord Jesus’), also translated into Persian with the assistance of ʿAbd al-Sattār; Ādāb al-salṭanat (‘Manners and duties of sovereignty’);

86

jerome xavier

Intikhāb-i ʿaqāʾid-i dīn ʿisaviyān (‘Summary of the beliefs of the religion of the Christians’); Bayān-i īmān-i ʿisaviyān (‘Explanation of the faith of the Christians’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary H. Hosten, ‘Eulogy of Father Jerome Xavier S.J., a missionary in Mogor (15491617)’, Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 23 (1927) 109-30 H. Hosten, ‘Some of Fr. Jerome Xavier’s letters to his family, 1583-1612’, Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 23 (1927) 131-6 Á. Santos Hernández, Jerónimo Javier S.J., apóstol del Gran Mogol y arzobispo electo de Cranganor en la India, 1549-1617, Pamplona, 1962 Secondary H. Didier, ‘Du déguisement du messager au déguisement du message. Les Jésuites à la cour d’Akbar’, in D. Crouzet (ed.), Frontières religieuses, Paris, 2013, 177-87 H. Didier, ‘Jerónimo Javier, un Navarro en la India’, in Primer congreso iberasiático de hispanistas, New Delhi, 2012, 147-58 H. Didier, ‘De Ramon Llull a Jerónimo Javier’, in N. Fernández Rodriguez and M. Fernández Rerreiro (eds), Literatura medieval y renacentista en Espana. Lineas y pautas, Salamanca, 2012, 507-15 A. Sidarus, ‘The Adab al-saltanat by Jerome Xavier SJ for the Mogul emperor’, Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 63 (2011) 73-98 H. Didier, ‘Les Jésuites auprès d’Akbar. Une mission chrétienne atypique auprès d’un souverain musulman atypique?’, in B. Heyberger and R. Madinier (eds), L’Islam des marges. Mission chrétienne et espaces périphériques du monde musulman XVI-XXième siècles, Paris, 2010, 17-43 H. Didier, ‘Jerónimo Javier (1547-1617), conocedor erudito del islam, como “contratestigo” de la expulsión de los moriscos’, in Actas del VII Congreso de la Asociación Internacional Siglo de Oro (AISO), Madrid, 2006, 185-8 H. Didier, ‘Los dos Javieres y el mundo islámico’, communication to Congreso Internacional – Los mundos de Javier, Pamplona, 2008, 375-88 H. Didier, Fantômes d’islam et de Chine. Le voyage de Bento de Góis (1603-1607), Paris, 2003, pp. 7-39, 159-281 Á. Santos Hernández, art. ‘Javier ( Jerónimo)’, in Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús, Rome, 2001, vol. 3, pp. 2141-2 R. Gulbenkian, ‘The translation of the four Gospels into Persian’, Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 36 (1980), 186-218, 267-88; 37 (1981) 35-57 F. Richard, ‘Catholicisme et islam chiite au “Grand Siècle” ’, Euntes Docete 33 (1980) 348-50, 383-4



jerome xavier

87

Á. Santos Hernández, Jerónimo Javier S.J., apóstol del Gran Mogol y arzobispo electo de Cranganor en la India, 1549-1617, Pamplona, 1962 A. Camps, Jerome Xavier, S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire. Controversial and missionary activity (Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft. Supplementa 6), Schöneck (Switzerland), 1957 Á. Santos Hernández, ‘La obra literaria persa de un jesuita navarro. El P. Jerónimo Javier’, Estudios Eclesiásticos 29 (1955) 233-50 Á. Santos Hernández, ‘Un sobrino de Javier en la corte de Gran Mogol’, Missionalia Hispanica 10 (1954) 565-77 Á. Santos Hernández, ‘El P. Jerónimo Javier S.J., arzobispo electo de Cranganor’, Studia Missionalia 7 (1953) 417-93 Á. Santos Hernández, ‘Dos Javieres en la India’, Miscelánea Comillas 18 (1952) 27-87 Hosten, ‘Eulogy of Father Jerome Xavier’

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Fuente (o Libro) de vida, ‘Source (or Book) of life’ Date 1597-1600 Original Language Castilian Description Fuente de vida occupies 294 pages in manuscript, 487 pages in the 2007 critical edition by H. Didier. It was written in Castilian interspersed with Portuguesisms in 1600, and translated into Persian in 1609. There is only one manuscript of the Castilian original, held in the Rome Archives of the Society of Jesus, while there are various manuscripts of the Persian translation (some abridged, others complete) under various titles, including Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā. According to Arnulf Camps, ‘The Roman text of 1600 exactly agrees with the Persian copies of 1609, except for the substitution of Akbar’s name by that of Jahāngīr and some alteratons made in the Epistola dedicatoria directed to the new Emperor in the Persian copies’ ( Jerome Xavier and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire), the only noticeable difference being the presence of a brief dedication to the Mughal monarch and a comprehensive table of contents, which are absent in the Persian version. Certain parts of Fuente de vida contain elements of political and anthropological description of the Euro-American world, and the work was able to satisfy the curiosity of Akbar and his courtiers. Certain linguistic particularities in the Castilian text lead to the assumption that

88

jerome xavier

notes previously written in Persian, possibly by the Jesuit and Iranian murtadd Francisco Henriques, were translated and reused by Xavier. In part inspired by the model employed by Ramon Llull in his El Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis, Fuente de vida takes the form of a dialogue between three protagonists, a Jesuit, a mawlā, representing Sunnī Islam, and a highly sceptical, even unbelieving (albeit culturally Muslim) philosopher. It can be inferred that, more often than not, the philosopher’s ideas and opinions coincide with those of Akbar. But the work should not be considered a simple dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The opposition between the two monotheistic religions is perhaps more apparent than real, and in the work this remains secondary to the choice between a God who is transcendent, unique and Creator (as in Christianity and Sunnī Islam), and a God who is confused with the cosmos (as in some versions of Sufi Islam). It can be assumed that Jerome Xavier would have been popular among many defenders of Sunnī orthodoxy, such as, for example, his Indo-Muslim contemporary Aḥmad Sirhindī (1563-1603), since both were relentless in their criticism of the principle of waḥdat al-wujūd, which interprets the first part of the shahāda, ‘There is no god but God’, as meaning that only God exists, implying the unreality of the world and the negation of any real difference between Creator and creature. This metaphysical monism was based on a radical interpretation by Ibn al-ʿArabī (although he never used the term waḥdat al-wujūd). Many Sufi orders spread this interpretation, and its assonance with the Hindu doctrine of advaita made it a politically fertile theory in India at the time. The most challenging task for Xavier in Fuente de vida was to disrupt the alliance of this Muslim heterodoxy with the world of the Brahmins. While it is a work of Christian-Muslim polemic, Fuente de vida divides its anti-Muslim arguments between the two representatives of Islam, the mawlā and the philosopher. The contents of the work and the freedom of tone (which remains unaltered in the Persian version), and in addition Xavier’s letters sent to Rome and Goa, all prove that the Jesuits at the Mughal court had become aware of the fundamentally political dimensions of the various Islamic titles taken by Akbar. Titles such as mujtahid (infallible translator of the Qur’an), khalīfat al-zamān (caliph for the second millennium), amīr al-muʾminīn wa-sulṭān al-Islām (leader of the faithful and sovereign of Islam), khalīfat Allāh wa-ẓill Allāh (God’s representative and his shadow on earth) were indicative of his intention to expand his own power and limit that of the ʿulamāʾ. Thus, the arguments put forward by the mawlā are frequently tentative and unsupported.



jerome xavier

89

Several details about Islam in Fuente de vida, and even particular arguments or discourses, could be loans from Akbar, Abū l-Faz̤l ʿAllāmī or other Muslims or former Muslims. For example, the controversial application of the concept of taḥrīf to the Qur’an (rather than the Bible) and the idea that it is the result of the interpolation of a previous text, could hardly have originated from Xavier himself, nor could Qur’an verses cited as evidence of a proto-Qur’an that remain altered in the extant text, e.g. Q 4:171, ‘ʿĪsā ibn Maryam is the word of God (kalimat Allāh)’. But, in an environment dominated by the personalities of Akbar and Abū l-Faz̤l ʿAllāmī, such notions would not seem untoward. A document held in the archives of the Society of Jesus explains how in 1596 the Mughal Empire requested the Jesuits to provide the name of the Syriac monk who was supposed to have communicated the essential details of the Bible to Muḥammad, and in this way helped him to compile what would become the Qur’an. In Fuente de vida, it is the philosopher himself who suggests that the central nucleus of the Qur’an constitutes a segment of the Gospel. By simply reading the Jesuits’ correspondence or ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī’s anti-Akbar treatise, it is easy to see that the dogma of the inimitability or invincibility (iʿjāz) of the Qur’an alone had been extended by the Muslim ruling elite to all holy books, including the Bible and the Vedas. Apologetic use of the Qur’an by Xavier to support his arguments about Christianity reflects a concern of Akbar (or his Sufi mentor) that had been manifested more than 20 years earlier, when he had sent correspondents to monasteries in the Middle East in search of Arabic manuscripts of the Bible. Met with a clear refusal to hand over such manuscripts, Akbar turned to the viceroy and the archbishop of Goa. The first Jesuits at Akbar’s court had arrived in 1580, bringing with them Benito Arias Montano’s polyglot Bible that had been published between 1568 and 1572, and were astounded when Akbar improvised a ceremony to reverence the book. To consider Muḥammad as the most important of the prophets (khātam al-anbiyāʾ) conflicted with Akbar’s ambitions as a legislator. Thus, the relatively forceful attacks against the sharīʿa in Fuente de vida reflect what is known of his private conversations, and the eventual conversion of the philosopher in the work reflects the motive behind the Jesuits’ mission, to convert Akbar, who had been distanced from Islam even before he invited the Jesuits to his court. But they were unsuccessful, and Akbar died as far from Christianity, despite his love for Jesus,

90

jerome xavier

as he was from Islam, despite the ostentatious and politically essential Islamic titles he had assumed. Significance Written during the last three years of the 16th century, in a context as particular as that of Akbar’s court (1542-1605), Fuente de vida was a work of little, if any, use within a Hispanic or Western context. This explains why it has taken until the 21st century for it to be published in Spanish. Following its translation into Persian, it could only be read and appreciated in the eastern part of the Islamic world. The work enjoyed considerable circulation in northern India and Iran, and was studied by the Isfahan sage Amīr Sayyid Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-ʿAlawī, who in 1623 published a response entitled Misqal-i safā dar tajliyya-i Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā (‘The polisher to cleanse the impurities of The truth-showing mirror’). Amīr Sayyid Aḥmad’s treatise in turn met with criticism, first from the missionary Buonaventura Malvasia in his 1628 publication, and then from another missionary, Filippo Guadagnoli. Guadagnoli’s critique was printed in Rome in 1631, and was translated into Arabic but not Persian. Aimé Chézaud’s 1656 work, in which he defends Xavier and criticises Sayyid Aḥmad, is preserved in St Petersburg and Paris (Richard, ‘Catholicisme et islam’). As a work moulded on the personality of the Mughal ruler, portrayed to a considerable extent in the character of the philosopher, Jerome Xavier’s Fuente de vida confirms the accuracy and the legitimacy of Muslim orthodox analysis that ranges from the contemporaneous work Muntakhab al-tawārikh by ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī (1540-1615), a stifling demonstration of Akbar’s apostasy, to Khaliq Ahmad Nizami’s modern work Akbar and religion (1989). These both agree that perhaps even by 1578-80 Akbar had rejected Islam. Another Jesuit, Antonio Monserrate, had at that point noted that Akbar no longer considered himself a Muslim, but only a ṭālib-i Khudā, ‘Seeker after God’, which coincides with what ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī would go on to call him: tālib-i Ḥaqq, ‘inquirer after the Truth’. Publications MS Rome, Roman Archive of the Society of Jesus – Opp. NN. 259, Fuente de vida (possibly after 1600) MS London, BL – Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā (possibly after 1609) MS London, BL – Khulāsa-i kitāb-i kirāmī-i Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā (possibly after 1609)



jerome xavier

91

MS Paris, BNF – Muntakhab-i Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā (possibly after 1609) Jerónimo Javier, Fuente de vida. Tratado apologético dirigido al Rey Mogol de la India en 1600, ed. H. Didier, intro. I. Cacho Nazabal, J.L. Orella Unzué and H. Didier, Donostia-San Sebastián: Universidad de Deusto, Instituto Ignacio de Loyola, 2007 Studies H. Didier, ‘Dissimulation, simulation, restriction mentale et taqiyya’, in M.-T. Urvoy (ed.), La morale au crible des religions, Paris, 2013, 165-96 H. Didier, ‘Al-faylasûf-el filosofo. Un mécréant tout compte fait assez musulman dans le Libro de vida de Jérôme Xavier’, in N. Koulayan and M. Sayah (eds), Synoptikos. Mélanges offerts à Dominique Urvoy, Toulouse, 2011, 193-207 H. Didier, ‘Jérôme Xavier, critique de l’éthique musulmane dans Fuente de vida au nom de la dignité de la femme’, in M.-T. Urvoy (ed.), Christianisme et islam. Foi et loi, Paris, 2010, 71-98 H. Didier, ‘Jérôme Xavier, conseiller chrétien d’Akbar (1542-1605), roi aussi machiavélique que musulman?’, in M.-T. Urvoy (ed.), Islam et christianisme. Éthique et politique, Paris, 2010, 103-41 H. Didier, ‘Muslim heterodoxy, Persian murtaddun and Jesuit missionaries at the court of King Akbar (1580-1605), The Heythrop Journal 49 (2008) 898-939 H. Didier, ‘Ormuz, point d’appui de la mission des jésuites auprès du roi Akbar (années 1580-1583 et 1595-1603)’, in D. Couto and R.M. Loureiro (eds), Revisiting Hormuz. Portuguese interactions in the Persian Gulf region in the early modern period, Wiesbaden, 2008, 163-75 I. Cacho Nazabal, J.L. Orella Unzué and H. Didier, ‘Introduction’, in Jerónimo Javier, Fuente de vida, ed. H. Didier V. Courtois, ‘Jerome Xavier’s method’, Notes on Islam 12 (1959) 78-81 V. Courtois, ‘Jerome Xavier and the Muslims’, Our Vineyard (1959) 8-10 Hugues Didier

Abū l-Faz̤l Shaykh Abū l-Faz̤l ʿAllāmī ibn Mubārak; Abul Fazl; Abul Fadl; Abu l-Fazl; Allami Date of Birth 1551 Place of Birth Agra (India) Date of Death 1602 Place of Death Near Gwalior (India)

Biography

Abū l-Faz̤l ʿAllāmī was a courtier, councillor, confidential chief secretary, commander of armies, official chronicler and legislator at the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar I. He was the second son of Shaykh Mubārak of Nagaur, a teacher and scholar, and the younger brother of Abū l-Fayz̤ ‘Fayz̤ī’, Akbar’s famous poet-laureate. Educated with the utmost care by his father, and endowed with great intellectual abilities and an exceptional memory, Abū l-Faz̤l had already read widely in Islamic sciences, Greek philosophy and Sufism by the age of 15. Focused entirely on his extensive and intensive studies, he lived ascetically and kept away from the mainstream of political life in the Mughal capital until the age of 17. He entered the Mughal court and Akbar’s service only in 1574, when he was introduced by his elder brother. After that, his career flourished quickly and without obstacles. Abū l-Faz̤l soon became the emperor’s chief secretary as well as his most intimate adviser and friend. For the next 25 years, he ideologically supported many of Akbar’s projects and decisions in the fields of politics, administration, economics and religion, creating at the same time an effective counterweight to the conservative faction of the orthodox Muslim clergy (ʿulamāʾ) at the court. He also led the Mughal imperial army in its wars in the Deccan. The openness of mind and eclectic views on many issues that the emperor shared with his secretary fostered their mutual understanding and cooperation to the point that some have referred to Abū l-Faz̤l as ‘Akbar’s tongue and a key to his wisdom, . . . a veritable Aristotle to this Alexander’ (Āzād, Darbār-e akbarī, pp. 471-2) or ‘the King’s Jonathan’ (Monserrate, Commentary, p. 54). He played a crucial role in the creation of Akbar’s policy of religious toleration and in the process of promoting



abū l-faz̤l

93

the principle of ṣulḥ-i kull (‘peace with all’). He was well acquainted with the particulars of the Christian faith, which he sought from Jesuit priests during the first Jesuit mission to Akbar’s court (1580-3), and he was commissioned by the emperor to translate the Gospels into Persian (Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tavārīkh, vol. 2, p. 260); however, there is no evidence that this work was ever carried out (cf. Fischel, ‘Bible in Persian translation’, p. 19). Abū l-Faz̤l was murdered by Vir Siṅgh Dev, a Bundela Rajput ruler of Orchha, while on his way from the Deccan to Agra, at the instigation of Akbar’s son Salīm (later the Emperor Jahāngīr), who suspected that his father’s secretary opposed his accession to the throne. He was buried at Antri. Abū l-Faz̤l was greatly admired for his fine literary style and manner of historical narration, which later authors sought to imitate. Apart from the monumental Akbarnāma, which is his greatest literary achievement, Abū l-Faz̤l authored a detailed administrative report of Akbar’s empire entitled Āʿīn-i Akbarī (which in fact constitutes the third volume of the Akbarnāma). A collection of his letters, both private and those he drafted for the emperor, known as Inshāʾ-i Abū al-Faz̤l (or Mukātabāt-i Abū al-Faz̤l, was compiled by his nephew Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad in 1602-7. It, too, had a significant influence on subsequent generations of Indo-Persian scribes (munshīs).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Abū l-Faz̤l, The Akbar nāma of Abu-l-Fazl, trans. H. Beveridge (Bibliotheca Indica 138), 3 vols, Calcutta, 1897-1939 (English trans., includes bibliographical references and index) Abū l-Faz̤l, The Āʿīn-i Akbarī, trans. H. Blochmann (vol. 1), and H.S. Jarret (vols 2-3), Calcutta, 1860-94 Abū l-Faz̤l, Mukātabāt-i ʿAllāmī, Lucknow: Munshī Nūl Kishur, 1863 ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Mulūk Shāh Badāʾūni, Muntakhab al-tavārīkh, ed. and trans. G.S.A. Ranking (vol. 1), W.H. Lowe (vol. 2) and W. Haig (vol. 3), Calcutta, 1884-1925 A. Monserrate, The commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J., on his journey to the court of Akbar, trans. J.S. Hoyland with notes by S.N. Banerjee, London, 1922 (originally in Latin, Mongolicae legationis commentarius, 1589-1600) P. du Jarric, Akbar and the Jesuits. An account of the Jesuit missions to the court of Akbar, trans. C.H. Payne, London, 1926 (originally in French, Histoire des choses plus mémorables advenues tant ez Indes orientales, Bordeaux, 1608-14)

94

abū l-faz̤l

Secondary I. Habib, ‘A political theory for the Mughal Empire. A study of the ideas of Abu’l Fazl’, in S. Moosvi (ed.), Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Fiftyninth session, Patiala, 1998, Aligarh, 1999, 329-40 M.A. Ali, ‘The evolution of the perception of India. Akbar and Abu’l Fazl’, Social Scientist 24 (1996) 80-8 H. Mukhia, Historians and historiography during the reign of Akbar, New Delhi, 1976 S.A.A. Rizvi, Religious and intellectual history of the Muslims in Akbar’s reign. With special reference to Abul Fazl, 1556-1605, New Delhi, 1975 Z.A. Ahmad, Abū al-Faẓl ibn Mubārak, Lahore, 1975 N.A. Siddiqi, ‘Shaikh Abul Fazl’, in H. Mohibbul (ed.), Historians of medieval India, Meerut, 1968, 123-41 A.F. Usmani, ‘Political ideas of Shaikh Abul Fazl Allami (1556-1602)’, Indian Journal of Political Science 24 (1963) 259-83 A. Nizami, Socio-religious outlook of Abu’l-Fazl, Aligarh, 1955 W.J. Fischel, ‘The Bible in Persian translation. A contribution to the history of Bible translations in Persia and India’, Harvard Theological Review 45 (1952) 3-45 S.A.A. Rizvi, ‘The Munajat of Abu’l Fazl’, Medieval India Quarterly 1 (1950) 1-37, 116-23 S.R. Sharma, ‘Abul Fazl as a political thinker’, Indian Journal of Political Science 9 (1948) 41-8 M.Ḥ. Āzād, Darbār-e Akbarī, Lahore, 1910

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Akbarnāma, ‘Book of Akbar’ ‘Chronicle of Akbar’ Date 1590-1602 Original Language Persian Description Akbarnāma is the official chronicle of the reign of the third Mughal Emperor of India, Akbar I (r. 1556-1605), and one of the fundamental sources for the history of India under the Mughals. The book was commissioned in 1589 by Akbar himself from Abū l-Faz̤l, who spent seven years (until 1596) completing the first part. He then continued writing the chronicle of Akbar’s reign until 1602, the year of his violent and unexpected death, working at the same time on Āʿīn-i Akbarī, which was completed in 1599 (Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, pp. 5-8, discusses these dates at length).



abū l-faz̤l

95

The work was originally composed in three volumes. The first volume, subdivided into two parts, deals with Akbar’s birth and presents his horoscope, based on Greek and Indian astrological theories. It also recounts the Emperor’s genealogy and describes the history of his ancestors from the house of Tīmūr, beginning with the scriptural Adam and ending with the first two Mughals, Bābur and Humāyūn. The latter part of this volume includes a detailed year-by-year chronicle of Akbar’s reign from his accession after Humāyūn’s death to the 17th regnal year, corresponding to 1572. The second volume of Akbarnāma continues the history of Akbar’s court and reign from 1572 to the end of the 46th regnal year, corresponding to about 1602. The third volume, titled Āʿīn-i Akbarī (‘The institutions of Akbar’), often treated as a separate work, is a meticulous compilation of information about the Mughal Empire in around 1590, including Akbar’s institutions, the civil and military government, and the revenue system. According to Abū l-Faz̤l, there existed five drafts of the text of the Akbarnāma, which his brother Fayz̤ī continued to edit until his death in 1595 (Rizvi, Religious and intellectual history, pp. 264-5). At present, what is believed to be a substantial part of the first version of the manuscript is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, consisting of a very incomplete copy of the text, comprising volume 2 and fragments of volume 3, with illustrations by royal artists (altogether 117 paintings in volume 2). Although not dated, the manuscript bears a note which says that, after Akbar’s death in 1605, Jahāngīr, his son and successor to the throne of India, placed this volume in the imperial library, where it remained at least up to the time of Aurangzeb (Khan, ‘Illustrated Akbarnāma’, pp. 424-5). Among other manuscripts dispersed between various libraries and private collections, there are a few that may have been written during Akbar’s lifetime. One of them is a manuscript of the first volume of Akbarnāma acquired by the British Museum in 1966 and now residing in the British Library, dated late-16th century, which, according to Glyn Meredith-Owens, is the long lost part of the original redaction from Akbar’s library (Meredith-Owens, ‘British Museum manuscript’, p. 94). The second and third volumes of the manuscript are to be found in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. The number of folios forming each volume of the manuscript varies, depending on the number of lines on a single page, the style of handwriting, the number of illustrations and other factors. The first lithographed edition, published in Lucknow by the famous Naval Kishaur publishing house in 1883, was divided into three volumes, corresponding

96

abū l-faz̤l

respectively to volume 1, part 1, volume 1, part 2, and volume 2 of the original manuscript. This edition, together with nine diverse manuscripts, became the basis for the first printed edition of Akbarnāma, edited by Mawlvī ʿAbd ur-Raḥīm, and published in 1877-87 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, as part of the Bibliotheca Indica series. It comprises nearly 1,700 pages divided into three tomes, and was the fundamental source of Henry Beveridge’s translation into English. The actual third volume of the Akbarnāma, Āʿīn-i Akbarī, was edited independently and published in Persian and English translation in the same Bibliotheca Indica series. As described in detail by Abū l-Faz̤l, the basic guideline of Akbar’s rule was ‘peace with all’ (ṣulḥ-i kull), which resulted in his empire earning a reputation as a place of refuge and a realm of safety (dār al-amān). Religious toleration was granted not only to Hindus, the largest minority, but to other religious communities including Jews and Christians, a situation almost unprecedented in Muslim lands. Among other things, in 1564 Akbar abolished the jizya and lifted a ban on erecting temples in honour of various gods. This privilege was extended to Christians, which made possible the building of churches in Lahore (1597) and Agra (1598/9). The second volume of Akbarnāma provides scattered descriptions of contacts between the Muslim elites of Akbar’s court and the first Christians to arrive in the Mughal capital in the second half of the 16th century. Abū l-Faz̤l mentions the advent of three Jesuits who were sent as the first mission from Goa to Akbar’s court and stayed for three years (1580-3). One of them was Pādrī Radalf (Rodolfo Acquaviva, 1550-83), described by Abū l-Faz̤l as ‘one of the Nazarene sages, who was singular for his understanding and ability’ (Akbarnāma, vol. 3, trans. Beveridge, p. 362). On the emperor’s order, the priests remained under the protection of Abū l-Faz̤l, and as a result he had a unique opportunity to acquire firsthand information on Christian dogmas and customs. Nazarenes (the term usually used by the chronicler for Christians) and Ṣābī (native Indians of a sect converted to Christianity and known also as the Christians of St John), along with representatives of other religions and various sects of Islam, participated in weekly religious debates organised at the court. Abū l-Faz̤l noted that, during these debates, the superiority of the Bible or the Qur’an remained a recurring yet unresolved question. Akbar, who held the Christian faith in high regard, also used the presence of the missionaries to diminish the position of the conservative and mostly Sunnī Muslim clergy. His liberal attitude towards Christianity and other religions was praised repeatedly by Abū l-Faz̤l but at the



abū l-faz̤l

97

same time strongly criticised by more orthodox ʿulamāʾ such as Badāʾūnī, who accused the emperor of heresy which, in his opinion, was caused by ‘those cursed men’ (the Christian priests), and other ‘persons of novel and whimsical opinions, in accordance with their pernicious ideas, and vain doubts’ (Muntakhab al-tavārīkh, vol. 2, p. 255).

Illustration 1. The Emperor Akbar with Jesuits at the ʿibādat-khāna, from Abū l-Faz̤l Akbarnāma (painting attributed to Narsingh Mughal) c. 1600.

98

abū l-faz̤l

Significance Even though direct references to Christian-Muslim relations in Akbarnāma are rare and rather modest considering the size of this voluminous work, they still remain the first record of such an encounter at the Mughal court in South Asia produced by a Muslim historian. Abū l-Faz̤l’s comments and descriptions are sometimes vague or allusive, but they become much clearer when compared with the accounts written by the priests who lived at Akbar’s court for some time, or with other historical works of the period, especially that of Badāʾūnī. What was unique about the relation between the Muslim ruler and Christianity as it is described in the Akbarnāma was the fact that Akbar merged some components of the Christian faith with components of other religions to create his own religious and philosophical system. The emperor’s main objective was to make it accessible to all the subjects of his multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. In addition, one should not forget that, in spite of Akbar’s pivotal role, the force at work was his secretary and the main ideologue of the state, Abū l-Faz̤l, who devoted all his efforts to the consolidation of Mughal power by creating an image of Akbar as the ideal man and sovereign. Even though the new creed did not gain many followers and faded away soon after its creator’s death, Akbar’s way of administrating his realm, which also manifested itself through his open and benevolent attitude to all faiths, including Christianity, is referred to up to the present day as the exemplary model for fulfilling the obligations of a ruler. His method of managing a state as complex and religiously diverse as India is still often recognised as secular and tending towards clearing up communal conflicts to the benefit of the central state power. Publications The many MSS of the Akbarnāma are described in detail in C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1879, vol. 1, pp. 247-51 (lists 20 MSS found in the British Museum collection); E. Sachau and H. Ethé, Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî, and Pushtû manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1889, pp. 110-15 (lists 13 MSS); H. Ethé, Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the library of the India Office, Oxford, 1903, vol. 1, pp. 99-107 (lists 29 MSS). A more recent survey of MSS, publications and translations of the Akbarnāma can be found in D.N. Marshall, Mughals in India. A bibliographic survey, vol. 1: Manuscripts, London, 1967, pp. 31-3. The Fihrist database lists 58 MSS; http://www.fihrist.org.uk/search/results_all?quick=Akbarn%C4%81mah



abū l-faz̤l

99

For other collections, only manuscripts containing Akbarnāma vols 1 and 2 are listed below; all MSS are written in Nastʿalīq script unless stated: MS London, Victoria and Albert Museum – I.S. 2-1896 1-117, fols 274 (c. 1602; contains vol. 2 and fragments of vol. 3; this is the oldest known MS, illuminated with 117 miniatures dated c. 1586-7; the evidence that this MS reused paintings originally intended to illustrate an earlier text is discussed in detail in Seyller, ‘Codicologiacal aspects’) MS London, BL – Or 12988 (c. 1604; vol. 1, including 39 miniatures; the MS shared with the Chester Beatty Library) MS Dublin, Chester Beatty Library – Ms 3 (c. 1604; this is a large section of the MS shared with the British Library, comprising vols 2 and 3, and containing 61 miniatures – the so-called ‘Beatty Akbarnāmah’) Thirteen pages from the so-called ‘Third’ Akbarnāma MS (lost), shared between Cynthia Hazen Polsky Collection, New York / Cleveland Museum of Art / Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London / private collection, England (1595-1600; commissioned for Akbar’s mother, Hamida Banu Begum; see Leach, ‘Pages from an Akbarnama’). MS New Delhi, National Museum – 60.624 (late 16th century [?]; this is one of the books from the library of ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Khān-e Khānānah [d. 1627]) MS London, Royal Asiatic Society Library – M. P. Cat. 110, fols 294 (1605; contains vol. 1, parts 1 and 2) MS Patna, Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library – 553, fols 384 (Lahaur 1649; contains vol. 2; a very good and neat copy made by Muʿīn ud-Dīn Agravī) MS Paris, BNF – Supplément persan 273, fols 701 (early 18th century; poor Nastʿalīq) MS London, Royal Asiatic Society Library – M. P. Cat. 109, fols 232 (1733; Shikastah) MS Kolkata, Victoria Memorial – on display, fols 453 (1794; Shikastah; contains vols 1, 2 and 3) MS London, Royal Asiatic Society Library – M. P. Cat. 111, fols 484 (1816; contains vol. 1, parts 1 and 2) MS Patna, Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library – No. 552, fols 301 (1827; contains vol. 1, copied by Sāḥab Rām Pandit) MS Kolkata, Victoria Memorial – on display, fols 249 (date unknown; contains vols 1 and 2)

100

abū l-faz̤l

MS London, Royal Asiatic Society Library – M. P. Cat. 112, fols 146 (date unknown; contains vol. 1, part 1) MS London, Royal Asiatic Society Library – M. P. Cat. 113, fols 168 (date unknown; contains vol. 1, part 2) MS London, Royal Asiatic Society Library – M. P. Cat. 114, fols 288 (date unknown; contains vol. 1, part 1) MS London, Royal Asiatc Society Library – M. P. Cat. 115, fols 367 (date unknown; contains vol. 1, part 2) MS Kolkata, Asiatic Society of Bengal – D 27 (166) (date unknown; Shikastah) MS Kolkata, Asiatic Society of Bengal – D 28 (237) (date unknown; Shikastah) MS Kolkata, Asiatic Society of Bengal – D 29 (1153) (date unknown) MS London, BM – Akbar Namah by Abul-Fazl, autograph fragments trans. William Erskine, 1832: Add. 26607 (the reign of Humāyūn); Add. 26620, 26621 (an abstract of the reign of Akbar) Akbarnāmah, Taṣnīf-i Shaykh Abū al-Faz̤l ʿAllāmī ibn Shaykh Mubārak Nagūrī, bi-taṣḥīh-i Aghā Aḥmad ʿAlī va ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, Kanpur and Lucknow, 1881-3 (lithographed edition in 3 vols, with notes by Muḥammad Ṣādiq ʿAlī) Maulvī ʿAbd ur-Raḥīm (ed.), The Akbarnāmah by Abū al-Faẓl ʿAllāmī ibn Mubārak (Bibliotheca Indica 79), Calcutta, 1876-87 (in 3 vols, with index of names of persons and geographical names) H. Beveridge (trans.), The Akbar nāma of Abu-l-Fazl (Bibliotheca Indica 138), Calcutta, 1897-1939 (English trans. in 3 vols; includes bibliographical references and index) Maheśa Ṭhakkura (King of Mithila), Sarvadeśavr ̥ttāntasaṅgrahaḥ, ed. Subhadra Jhā, Patna, [1962/63] (an abridged Sanskrit rendering; introduction and notes in English; indices of proper names in English and Sanskrit; bibliographical footnotes) Shaykh Abū l-Faz̤l Mubārak, Akbarnāma: tārīkh-i gūrkāniyān-i Hind; bih kūshish-i Ghulām Rizā T̤ abāt̤abāʾī Majd, Tehran, 1993 (Persian) Z.A. Dossal, Akbarnama. Abul Fazl’s account simplified and abridged, Oxford, 2001 (abridged English trans. for children) Ś ekha Abula Phajala Allāmī kr̥ta Akabaranāmā, sampādaka evaṃ sakshepaka Dāmodaralāla Garga, Jayapura, 2008 (Hindi, trans.) Sarvaśavr̥ttāntasaṅgrahaḥ, athavā, Akabaranāmaḥ, sampadaka Pratāpa Kumāra Miśra, Ajñāta evaṃ durlabha kr̥ti prakāśana-mālā 2, Vārāṇasī, 2012 (abridged Sanskrit trans. by Mahesh Thakur; intro. in Hindi)



abū l-faz̤l

101

Studies S. Moosvi, ‘Medieval Indo-Persian historiography’, in B. Ray (ed.), Different types of history, Delhi, 2009, 59-69 F. Weis, ‘Christian iconography disguised. Images of childbirth and motherhood in Merʿāt al-Qods in and Akbarnāme manuscripts, 1595-1605’, South Asian Studies 24 (2008) 109-18 L.Y. Leach, ‘Pages from an Akbarnama’, in R. Crill, S. Stronge and A. Topsfield (eds), Arts of Mughal India. Studies in Honour of Robert Skelton, London, 2004, 42-55 K. Khasanov and K. Ono, ‘Oriental miniature paintings the basis of culture and history (Shahnama, Baburnama and Akbarnama)’, in K. Ono (ed.), Proceedings of the Nara symposium for digital silk roads, Tokyo, 2004, 487-94 L.Y. Leach, Mughal and other Indian paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, London, 1995, vol. 1, pp. 232-300 J. Seyller, ‘Codicological aspects of the Victoria and Albert Museum Akbarnāma and their historical implications’, Art Journal 49 (1990) 379-87 S. Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, c. 1595. A statistical study, Delhi, 1987 G. Sen, Paintings from the Akbar nama. A visual chronicle of Mughal India, Varanasi, 1984 Rizvi, Religious and intellectual history A.N. Khan, ‘An illustrated Akbarnāma manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’, East and West 19 (1969) 424-9 G.M. Meredith-Owens, ‘The British Museum manuscript of the Akbarnāmeh’, The Burlington Magazine 109 (1967) 92, 94-5 E.F. Wellesz, ‘An Akbar-Namah manuscript’, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 80 (1942) 35-41, 143 T.W. Arnold, Chronicle of Akbar the Great. A description of a manuscript of the Akbar-nāma illustrated by the court painters, Oxford, 1937 H. Beveridge, ‘Note on an illuminated Persian manuscript’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1905) 365-6 Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fraś

Akbar Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar Date of Birth 14 October 1542 Place of Birth Umarkot (present-day Pakistan) Date of Death 17 October 1605 Place of Death Agra, India

Biography

Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar, the son of Emperor Humāyūn and Hamida Banu Begum, was born on 14 October 1542 at Umarkot. He was proclaimed emperor at the age of 13, on 14 February 1556, after his father’s accidental death. Between 1556 and 1562, the empire was ruled by Bairam Khan, who had been appointed by Humāyūn as Akbar’s tutor (ataliq) in 1555, two months before the emperor’s death (see Khan, ‘Mughal court politics’ and Streusand, Formation). In March 1560, Akbar announced the end of the regency, probably fearing that his regent’s growing influence at court could become a threat. Akbar’s political project was based on two goals: territorial expansion and centralisation of power. As a first stage, he aimed to consolidate Humāyūn’s legacy, so in the 1560s and the 1570s he initiated a long period of territorial expansion and fiscal centralism. Another important aspect of his political project was the concept of ṣulḥ-i kull (peace with all), which aimed to integrate all ethnic and religious groups into the Mughal polity. The religious diversity of the Mughal Empire was regarded as a potential threat to the stability of Akbar’s reign. The emperor was therefore confronted with the problem of satisfying his Muslim officials and courtiers, and the necessity of incorporating Hindus, the majority of the empire’s population, and other non-Muslims into the Mughal establishment. The solution to this problem was the implementation of a policy of religious tolerance, and greater imperial control over the Muslim clergy – an option that contrasted with the emperor’s initial proximity to the Sunnī orthodox Mughal tradition during the 1560s. The first steps of this policy were taken in 1562, when Akbar abolished the jizya, the tax imposed on all non-Muslims (dhimmīs) living in an Islamic state, and allowed the erection of non-Muslim temples. These highly symbolic and polemical decisions indicated the emperor’s intention of granting



akbar

103

equal status to all ethnic and religious groups in the Mughal Empire, and were behind the establishment of an imperial ideology based on his own spiritual and political authority (Subrahmanyam, Mughals and Franks, p. 52). The emperor’s interest in religious diversity led to the construction in 1574 of the ʿibādat-khāna (house of worship) at Fatehpur Sikri, aimed at creating a space for discussion of Islamic law and theology. Initially, the building was dedicated to debates between Shīʿī and Sunnī theologians, but it gradually opened to Hindu, Jains, Parsees, Jews, Sikhs and Christians (Camps, Jerome Xavier, p. 52). In June 1579, Akbar increased his spiritual authority when he himself read the khuṭba at Friday prayers in his own name, and four months later, in September, he signed a decree (mahzar) establishing the Mughal emperor as the supreme authority in religious matters (Camps, Jerome Xavier, p. 53). Besides confirming the emperor’s authority, the decree was an instrument that aimed to reduce the authority of the ʿulamāʾ, forcing them to accept the emperor’s political projects (Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, pp. 179-81). After the mahzar of 1579, Akbar flirted with the idea of presenting himself as a murshid (spiritual guide). In 1582, he created the Dīn-i ilāhī (Divine faith) or Tawḥīd-i ilāhī (Divine monotheism), a spiritual order or brotherhood that promoted a semi-religious personality cult of Akbar himself (Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân’, p. 91). The Divine Faith mixed elements from Hinduism, Islam, Jainism and Zoroastrianism, and was an attempt to conciliate Akbar’s centralising policy with a new religious movement. This interest in syncretism and religious diversity provoked a violent reaction from orthodox Sunnīs, who made several attempts to undermine Akbar’s political and religious agenda. Between the 1560s and the 1580s, he faced several efforts by various factions to replace him with Mirza Hakim, the Afghan ruler (Faruqui, Princes of the Mughal Empire, pp. 28, 137). Mirza Hakim’s ambitions ended with Akbar’s Afghan campaign, which culminated in the occupation of Kabul. Defeating Mirza would allow Akbar to confirm his project of a multicultural empire, as well as ensure Mughal intervention in Afghanistan. In the 1590s, Akbar initiated a military campaign in Sindh with the aim of cementing Mughal influence in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf (Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân’, p. 138). However, the death of Prince Murād and the defeat of the Mughal troops at Bird forced Akbar briefly to put on hold his plans to annex the Deccan. The campaign was relaunched in September 1599 and led by Akbar himself. In August 1600,

104

akbar

the city of Ahmadnagar was conquered, and in January 1601 the ruler of Kandesh, Bahādur Shāh, surrendered (Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân’, p. 170). The final stage of Akbar’s reign was troubled by a long conflict with his son Salīm, the future Jahāngīr, and by the deaths of his mother and aunt, two key figures in his political affairs, as well as by the death of Prince Daniyal, who was governing the Deccan (Flores, ‘Firangistan e Hindustan’, p. 187). He died in Agra in 1605.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary F. Gladwin (trans.), Ayeen Akbery or The Insitutes of the Emperor Akber, London, 1800 Abū l-Faz̤l, Akbar nāma, Calcutta, 1877-9 (Persian text); trans. H. Beveridge, The Akbarnama of Abuʾl Fazl, Calcutta, 1902-39 (repr. 2010) S.N. Banerjee (ed.) and J.S. Hoyland (trans), The commentary of Father Monserrate S.J. on his journey to the court of Akbar, Oxford, 1922 Al-Badaoni, Muntakhab at tawarikh, trans. G.S.A. Ranking, New Delhi, 1990 Secondary M.D. Faruqui, Princes of the Mughal Empire, Cambridge, 2012 S. Subrahmanyam, Mughals and Franks, Oxford, 2005 J. Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân. O Estado da Índia e os Confins Meridionais do Império Mogol (1572-1636)’, Lisbon, 2004 (PhD Diss. Universidade Nova de Lisboa) J. Gommans, Mughal warfare. Indian frontiers and high roads to empire, 1500-1700, London, 2002 M. Alam, ‘State building under the Mughals. Religion, culture and politics’, Cahiers d’Asie Centrale 3-4 (1997) 105-28 M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam (eds), The Mughal state, New Delhi, 1997 I. Habib (ed.), Akbar and his India, New Delhi, 1997 J.F. Richards, The Mughal Empire, Cambridge, 1995 I.A. Khan, ‘Akbar’s personality traits and world outlook. A critical reappraisal’, Social Scientist 20/9-10 (1992) 16-30 D.E. Streusand, The formation of the Mughal Empire, Oxford, 1989 M.A. Ali, ‘Akbar and Islam, 1581-1605’, in M. Israel and N.K. Wagle (eds), Islamic society and culture. Essays in honour of Professor Aziz Ahmad, New Delhi, 1983, 123-34 J.F. Richards, ‘The formulation of imperial authority under Akbar and Jahangir’, in J.F. Richards (ed.), Kingship and authority in South Asia, Madison, 1978, 252-89



akbar

105

S.A.A. Rizvi, Religious and intellectual history of the Muslims in Akbar’s reign (1556-1605) with special reference to Abul Fazl, New Delhi, 1975 I.A. Khan, ‘The Mughal court politics during Bairam Khan’s regency’, Medieval India. A Miscellany 1 (1969) 21-39 I.A. Khan, ‘The nobility under Akbar and the development of his religious policy, 1560-80’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 100/1 (1968) 29-36 A. Camps, Jerome Xavier S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire, Schöneck, Beckenried, 1957 V.A. Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, 1542-1605, Oxford, 1917

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Akbar’s letter to Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal) Letter to Philip II Date 1582 Original Language Persian Description In 1582, Akbar decided to send two envoys, Sayyid Muzaffar and Abdu­ llah Khan, accompanied by the Jesuit missionary Antonio Monserrate, to Goa and Lisbon. The goal of the embassy was to maintain the interest of the Jesuit hierarchy in the continuation of the mission at the Mughal court, as well as to congratulate Philip II on his accession to the Portuguese throne and deliver a letter from the Mughal emperor to the new Portuguese monarch. The embassy, however, came to an abrupt end. Sayyid Muzaffar fled to the Deccan because of his opposition to Akbar’s religious heterodoxy, while Abdullah Khan was forced to stay in Goa for a year due to problems relating to the Carreira da Índia, and eventually was instructed to return to Fatehpur Sikri. According to Antonio Monserrate, after one year ‘the state of affairs had occasioned such changes of plans and policy that the project of the embassy was entirely abandoned and delivered over to eternal oblivion’ (Monserrate, Commentary, p. 191). It is possible that the shared interests of the Mughals and Portuguese would have been discussed between Akbar’s envoys and Philip II, but the real aim of the embassy seems to have been to enhance the international prestige of Akbar and to compete with the Ottomans on the European diplomatic scene. Although the letter is generically addressed to the ‘wise men of the Franks’ (Danayan-i-Farang) in Rehatsek’s translation,

106

akbar

according to Edward Maclagan there are other versions of the letter addressed to the ‘Ruler of the Europeans’ ( farmariwa-i Farang) (Maclagan, Jesuits and the Great Mughal, p. 37). The adoption of these vague forms of address was probably related to eventual doubts regarding the situation of the Portuguese Crown after the death of King Sebastian I in 1578 and the acclamation of Philip II as king of Portugal in 1581. The letter asked for a learned missionary or scholar who could present Christian doctrine in Persian, as well as copies of the Gospels, the Psalms and the Pentateuch, preferably translated into Arabic and Persian. Akbar also mentioned that his letter had the ‘purpose of strengthening our friendship, and confirming our union’. This has often been interpreted as a suggestion for a Luso-Mughal alliance against the Ottoman Empire. One of the most interesting aspects of this document is the way Akbar expresses his ideology and political project through allegories, symbolic images and metaphors. Despite being a document that states the idea of Mughal superiority, Akbar does not make any claim to supreme authority over the king of Spain. Indeed, he plays with the idea that kings are members of a universal family of rulers. Philip II is treated as an equal (‘a recipient of divine illumination’) and a fellow member of the universal family of world rulers (‘the exalted tribe of princes’). As Ebba Koch has noted, the letter to Philip II reveals that, for the Mughal emperor, it was the social and political position of a ruler that was relevant, rather than his religion, ethnicity or cultural background – an idea that allowed the Mughals to share different ideologies, symbols and identities (Koch, ‘Mughal pādshāhs’, p. 198). Significance Akbar’s letter to Philip II is a document that should be analysed both within the framework of the interaction between the Jesuits and the Mughal emperor, and also the intricate geopolitical context of the 1580s in western Europe and south Asia, which was shaped by the union of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in 1580, and the Mughal campaigns in Gujarat, Bengal and Afghanistan. The real aim of the letter and the failed embassy to Philip II, besides establishing a direct contact with the Habsburg monarch, was to introduce the Mughal emperor to the early modern European diplomatic theatre, where the Ottoman sultan – the great rival of Akbar for prestige in the Islamic world – was already a key actor. Indeed, the presence of elements that were typical of Akbari ideology indicates that the letter was particularly concerned with presenting



akbar

107

him to his European counterparts as a powerful and sophisticated ruler with whom it was possible to interact. Akbar’s direct request for a learned missionary or scholar, as well as translations of the Christian scriptures, was related to the continuity of the Jesuit mission, which by 1582 was regarded by the Jesuit hierarchies as a dead-end enterprise. For Akbar, however, the Jesuit missionaries and Christian theology were not only useful tools in his ideological programme, but they also played a valuable diplomatic role as intermediaries between the Portuguese Estado da Índia and himself, not to mention their role in keeping the Mughal court in touch with European culture, especially Western European artistic innovations. Besides the Jesuit mission, Akbar had a more pressing issue to discuss with Philip II – the cartaz (Portuguese naval passport) system. Between 1576 and 1581, the restrictions imposed by the Portuguese Estado da Índia on ḥajj pilgrimages from India were a controversial issue within the Mughal court. Abū l-Faz̤l and Badāʾūnī often accused the Portuguese in their writings of disturbing the ḥajj. In the Akbarnāma, Abū l-Faz̤l mentions that Akbar had planned an attack against the Portuguese ports (Beveridge, Akbar nāma of Abū l-Faz̤l, vol. 3, pp. 409-10). Badāʾūnī, in his Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, suggests that Mughal pilgrims should renounce the ḥajj to avoid the insult of using a document such as the cartaz, which contained images of Jesus and Mary. In 1576, an incident involving Akbar’s aunt, Gulbadan Begum, aggravated the already existing tensions related to the cartaz. Gulbadan and her entourage faced several problems obtaining a cartaz and were forced to stay almost a year at Surat before embarking for the Hijaz. The hardships faced by the emperor’s aunt exposed the weaknesses of the Mughal Empire in the Indian Ocean, but above all threatened the image of the emperor as a fearsome and powerful ruler. Indeed, the obstacles posed by the cartaz, and the expansionist projects of the Mughal Empire, led Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad Khān to a failed attack against Daman in 1580. Antonio Monserrate also mentions in the Mongolicae legationis commentarius a Mughal attack on a Portuguese fleet, as well as secret plans to attack Diu in 1582 (Subrahmanyam, Mughals and Franks, p. 65; Monserrate, Commentary, pp. 166-9). It is therefore quite possible that Akbar sought to establish direct contact with Philip II in order to reach an agreement regarding freedom of navigation for Mughal ships before deciding to embark on a hostile campaign against the Estado da Índia. Indeed, the letter coincided with Akbar’s Afghan campaign against Mirza Hakim, and he

108

akbar

was probably not inclined to enter into a new conflict before finishing in Afghanistan. The fact that the letter to Philip II stated Akbar’s wishes of ‘confirming our union’ has often been interpreted as an invitation to form a LusoMughal alliance against the Ottoman Empire. This interpretation was influenced by Antonio Monserrate’s suggestions in his Commentary that Akbar was a declared enemy of the Great Turk, as well as by the Ottoman reaction to the contact between the Portuguese and Mughals. Although the embassy to Philip II was aborted, the recurrent envoys and embassies sent by Akbar to Goa generated several rumours that suggested the existence of a formal alliance between Akbar and Philip II, as well as an imminent Luso-Mughal invasion of Yemen. These rumours were interpreted by the Ottoman authorities as a worrying sign of an imminent Luso-Mughal alliance against the Sublime Porte (Farooqi, ‘Six Ottoman documents’, pp. 41-2, 47-8; Casale, Ottoman age of exploration, p. 170). There was actually some ground for a Luso-Mughal entente against the Ottoman Empire. Despite some diplomatic manoeuvres between the Portuguese and Ottomans to establish an agreement towards a stable and peaceful order in the Red Sea, the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese authorities perceived the Ottomans as a serious threat to their interests (Casale, Ottoman age of exploration, pp. 117-8). The raids by Mir Ali Bey in 1581 against Portuguese positions on the east African coast and in southern Arabia (M. Newitt, A history of Portuguese overseas expansion 1400-1668, London, 2005, p. 187; S. Soucek, ‘The Portuguese and the Turks in the Persian Gulf ’, in D. Couto and R. Manuel Loureiro (eds), Revisiting Hormuz. Portuguese interactions in the Persian Gulf region in the Early Modern period, Wiesbaden, 2008, 29-56, p. 40) were widely regarded as a demonstration of supposed Ottoman ambitions to expel the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. Although the Ottoman activities in the Swahili coast and modern-day Oman should, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam has pointed out, be interpreted as essentially motivated by specific local factors rather than as part of a grand Ottoman imperial strategy, the raids in Mombasa and Muscat contributed to the belief that the Great Turk was planning to attack Hormuz and the Portuguese ports in India. Akbar was therefore a potential useful ally against the Ottoman threat (Subrahmanyam, Mughals and Franks, pp. 50-1). For the Mughals, the Portuguese also offered an interesting ally in an eventual conflict against the Ottomans, because by 1582 Akbar had emerged as a potential rival to the prestige and power of the Ottoman



akbar

109

sultan. After the conquest of Gujarat and Bengal, he began to develop the image of a universal ruler based on the concept of khalīfa, challenging directly the claims of the Ottoman sultans to the title of khalife-i ruy-i zemin (‘caliph on the earth’), which were based on their control over Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Between 1576 and 1580, Akbar continued to challenge the Ottoman sultan by sponsoring five ḥajj caravans from India and offered lavish ṣadaqāt (donations or charity) and gifts to the religious authorities of Mecca and Medina (Farooqi, MughalOttoman relations, p. 88). In 1579, Akbar forced a group of theologians to sign a document which claimed that the Mughal emperor could use the title of Padshah-i Islam (‘Emperor of Islam’) (Subrahamanyam, Mughals and Franks, p. 55). During the same year, Akbar attempted to present himself as khalīfa not only by sponsoring ḥajj caravans from his empire, but also by leading the faithful during Friday prayers, following the example of the ‘Abbasid caliphs. The growing Mughal presence in the Hijaz provoked several tensions, which culminated, in 1581, with the expulsion of all Mughal pilgrims from Mecca and Medina on the grounds that the local population and other pilgrims were scandalised by their not following the rules of the sharīʿa and displaying indecent behaviour (Farooqi, ‘Six Ottoman documents’, p. 46). The expulsion of the Mughal pilgrims initiated a period of great tension between the Ottomans and Mughals, which resulted in the violent end of an Ottoman embassy to Akbar. This growing hostility between the Great Mughal and the Great Turk made the Portuguese a potential interesting partner for Akbar. Akbar’s letter to Philip II could also be interpreted as part of a long process of political and cultural transfer between western Europe and south Asia in the 16th century (Lefèvre, ‘Europe – Mughal India’, p. 127). The request for Christian scriptures and learned scholars or missionaries paved the way – despite the failure of the first Jesuit mission to the Mughal court – for the subsequent Jesuit missions of 1590 and 1594. At the same time, it laid the foundations for a long and occasionally collaborative or turbulent relationship between the Portuguese and Mughals. A good example of the impact of the letter is the fact that Jerome Xavier, in his Ādāb-us-saltanat (1609), also known as the Directorio de reys, a mirror for princes dedicated to Jahāngīr, used Philip II as an example of a good ruler in order to explore the fact that the Habsburg monarch was the first European ruler with whom the Mughals established direct contact (Lefèvre, ‘Europe – Mughal India’, p. 136).

110

akbar

Publications Abū l-Faz̤l, Inshā-i-Abū l-Faz̤l, Calcutta, 1810, p. 42 (Persian original in the collection of letters drafted by Abū l-Faz̤l) E. Rehatsek, ‘A letter from the Emperor Akbar asking for Christian scriptures’, The Indian Antiquary (1877) 135-9 (English trans.) M. Haidar (ed. and trans.), Mukatabat-i-Allami (Insha⁠ʾi Abuʾl Fazl) Daftar I, New Delhi, 1998, pp. 8-12 (English trans.) J. Flores and A.V. de Saldanha (ed. and trans.), Os firangis na chancelaria Mogol. Cópias portuguesas de documentos de Akbar, 1572-160)/ The firangis in the Mughal chancellery. Portuguese copies of Akbar’s documents, 1572-1604, New Delhi, 2003 (Portuguese and English trans.) Studies E. Koch, ‘How the Mughal pādshāhs referenced Iran in their visual construction of universal rule’, in P.F. Bang and D. Kołodziejczyk (eds), Universal empire. A comparative approach to imperial culture and representation in Eurasian history, Cambridge, 2012, 194-209 C. Lefèvre, ‘Europe – Mughal India – Muslim Asia. Circulation of political ideas and instruments in early modern times’, in A. Flüchter and S. Richter (eds), Early modern state (building) in Asia and Europe. Comparison, transfer and entanglement, Heidelberg, 2009, 125-43 G. Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration, Oxford, 2010 A.V. Saldanha, Iustum imperium. Dos tratados como fundamento do Império Português no Oriente, Lisbon, 2005 Subrahmanyam, Mughals and Franks Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân’ J. Correia-Afonso, The Jesuits in India, 1552-1773, Gujarat, 1997 N.R. Farooqi, ‘Six Ottoman documents on Mughal-Ottoman relations during the reign of Akbar’, Journal of Islamic Studies 7 (1996) 32-48 J.P. Oliveira e Costa and V.L. Gaspar Rodrigues, Portugal y Oriente. El proyecto indiano del Rey Juan, Madrid, 1992 N.R. Farooqi, Mughal-Ottoman relations. A study of the political and diplomatic relations between Mughal India and the Ottoman Empire, 1556-1748, Delhi, 1989 J. Correia-Afonso, Letters from the Mughal court, Bombay, 1980 M. Renick, ‘Akbar’s first embassy to Goa. Its diplomatic and religious aspect’, Indica 8 (1970) 32-47 J. Correia-Afonso, Jesuit letters and Indian history, 1542-1773, Bombay, 1969



akbar

111

E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mughal, London, 1932 Beveridge, Akbar nāma of Abū l-Faz̤l Banerjee and Hoyland, The commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J., on his journey to the court of Akbar

Akbar’s farmans concerning Portuguese-Mughal relations Farmans Date 1572-1604 Original Language Persian Description Following the capture of Ahmadabad, the capital of the Sultanate of Gujarat, and the abdication of Sultan Muzaffar Shāh III, Akbar was declared Lord of Gujarat and his name proclaimed in the khuṭba during Friday prayers. The growing proximity of the Mughal territories to the possessions of the Estado da Índia in Gujarat (Bassein, Diu and Daman) led Akbar to send a farman (decree) to the captain of the Portuguese fort of Diu, Aires Teles. There is no known Persian version of this farman. According to the surviving Portuguese translation, the document was written on 13 December 1572. The farman requested that the khuṭba be read at the mosques of Diu in the name of Akbar and that the Mughal currency be adopted in the city. Although these two requests were an obvious attempt to impose symbols of Mughal sovereignty, Aires Teles adopted a rather pragmatic attitude, and advised the viceroy in Goa to accept them. In a letter to the viceroy, Aires Teles mentions that, after consulting the Muslim community of Diu, he concluded that reading the khuṭba in Akbar’s name was a mere formality confirming that the Mughal emperor had replaced the sultan of Gujarat. Regarding the adoption of Mughal currency, Teles believed that it would bring only advantages to the city. Mughal silver and gold coins were of a much higher quality than the coins in circulation in the sultanate of Gujarat, which were frequently false (Flores and Saldanha, Firangis, p. 44). The conquest of Surat paved the way to a second, more formal form of contact between Akbar and the Portuguese. The regular movements of Mughal troops on the outskirts of the city were watched with

112

akbar

apprehension by the Portuguese, who feared that Akbar wanted to take it over after his successful conquests of Surat and Cambay. The Mughal emperor, however, seemed to change his initial plans to annex Daman, and sent an ambassador to Goa (Saldanha, Iustum imperium, p. 664). Confronted with the prospects of an eventual Mughal attack on the Portuguese cities of Bassein and Daman, Viceroy António de Noronha travelled to Daman and received the Mughal envoy with all the required solemnity and pomp. This contact was immediately followed by a Portuguese embassy to Akbar, led by António Cabral, who was received by the emperor in Surat (Saldanha, Iustum imperium, p. 665). The talks between the two sides resulted in the farman of 18 March 1573, which aimed to establish relations of ‘peace and friendship’ between the Portuguese and Mughals. The document was extremely favourable to the Estado da Índia: it confirmed Portuguese control over Daman and promised Mughal collaboration in the Portuguese activities against the Malabar pirates and merchants (Flores and Saldanha, Firangis, p. 45; Pearson, Merchants and rulers, p. 83). As a gesture of goodwill, the Portuguese granted the Mughal emperor an annual free cartaz (naval safeconduct pass), exempt from duties, for a ship from Surat to Mecca (Couto, Década IX, cap. 13, p. 85). From the Mughal perspective, the farman allowed Akbar to temporise with the Portuguese as well as safeguard the imperial patronage of the ḥajj. It is interesting that the Akbarnāma omits the concession of an annual free cartaz to the Mughal emperor, and prefers to present the meeting between Akbar and the Portuguese ambassador as an encounter between a minor potentate and a great imperial power. Abū l-Faz̤l mentions ‘that a large number of Christians came from the port of Goa and its neighbourhood to the foot of the sublime throne, and were rewarded by the bliss of an interview (mulāzamat)’, and that ‘when that crew saw the majesty of the imperial power, and had become cogni­sant of the largeness of the army, and of the extent of the siegetrain, they represented themselves as ambassadors and performed the kor­nish’ (Beveridge, Akbar nāma of Abū l-Faz̤l, vol. 3, p. 37). The Mughal acceptance of the cartaz system could therefore be interpreted as a tacit recognition by Akbar of the Portuguese monopoly of the sea trade of Gujarat and Hindustan, a position which, although pragmatic, damaged the emperor’s dignity and claims to universal rule (Pearson, Merchants and rulers, p. 84). The farman of 1578 relates to the first Jesuit mission to the Mughal court. The document was addressed to the ‘Chief Fathers of the Order of



akbar

113

St Paul’ and requested that the Jesuit Provincial send ‘two learned priests who should bring with them the principal books of the Law and the Gospel’ in order to teach the Mughal emperor about ‘the Law and what is most perfect in it’. Akbar also promised to receive the missionaries ‘with all possible honours’ and protect them. After a period of discussion between the Jesuit provincial, the archbishop of Goa and the Portuguese viceroy, three missionaries – Antonio Monserrate, Rodolfo Acquaviva and Francisco Henriques – were appointed, and reached Fatehpur Sikri in March 1580. Akbar used the Jesuits to pursue his political and ideological programme, as well as to secure a reliable source of information on the Portuguese and establish a channel of communication with the Estado da Índia. Although the reports sent by the three missionaries suggest that Akbar could be converted, the mission’s failure to convert a single individual was considered an appalling result, especially when compared with the Jesuit missions to China and Japan. Indeed, as early as 1581, the Provincial instructed Henriques to return to Goa to present a report and discuss the evolution of the mission. The failure to convert Akbar and any of his courtiers, as well as the growing Sunnī orthodox hostility towards the missionaries and the emperor’s religious agenda, were regarded by the Provincial as serious obstacles that would force the end of the mission. Indeed, after the failed Mughal embassy to Philip II, in 1582, Monserrate did not return to the Mughal court, leaving Rodolfo Acquaviva as the only missionary operating there. The growing disappointment regarding the lack of progress of the Mughal mission led the Jesuit hierarchies to cancel it. After several letters from the Provincial addressed to Akbar requesting the return to Goa of Rodolfo Acquaviva, the emperor in 1583 signed a farman allowing his return to the Estado, but asked the Provincial to send Acquaviva together with other missionaries ‘with the least possible delay’ to resume the mission. The farman also mentioned that Akbar ‘said many things by word of mouth’ to Rodolfo Acquaviva that should be communicated to the Provincial and which were ‘to be well considered’ (Flores and Saldanha, Firangis, p. 70). In 1590, Akbar sent a farman to the Jesuits at Goa asking the Provincial to send missionaries to the Mughal court. This new request was instigated by the presence at the Mughal court of Leon Grimon, a Greek subdeacon, who, after being ‘questioned on sundry matters’, suggested that the emperor should ask the Portuguese to send missionaries to the court. Following this suggestion, Akbar sent Grimon to Goa to present a letter

114

akbar

and a gift to the viceroy and the farman to the Jesuit Provincial. According to the Jesuit sources, the Greek priest assured the Provincial that the new mission would find a favourable response, since Akbar was distancing himself from Islam and worshiping the Virgin Mary (Maclagan, Jesuits and the Great Mughal, p. 48). Two missionaries were duly sent to Lahore, Duarte Leitão and Cristóbal de la Vega, and to support them during their journey Akbar signed another farman, which instructed all Mughal officials to protect the two Jesuits. However, the second mission ended abruptly after the two Jesuits became aware that Akbar had founded a new religious cult. A letter from Father Pedro Martins to Claudio Acquaviva mentioned that the second mission failed because Akbar wanted the presence of the missionaries ‘to make a new sect’ (Wicki, Documenta indica, vol. 15, p. 740). Indeed, the missionaries were privileged witnesses of an ideological transformation of Akbar’s ­political project in which the emperor adopted a messianic and semi-divine image (Subrahmanyam, ‘Du Tage au Gange’, pp. 72-5; Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân’, p. 132). The arrival of the members of the second mission coincided with the zenith of the millenarian expectations of the Muslim world, the year 999 AH, which Akbar and his ideologues, especially Abū l-Faz̤l, tried to manipulate to enhance the symbolic power and prestige of the emperor. The farmans of 1598, 1601 and 1602 are all related to the third mission, especially the work of Manuel Pinheiro in Lahore. In 1594, the third mission was finally launched after a letter from Akbar to the Portuguese viceroy requesting, once again, learned men able to explain the Christian doctrine and scriptures to him and his court. The Provincial feared another Jesuit failure and, after much pressure from the viceroy, three missionaries – Jerome Xavier, Manuel Pinheiro and Bento de Góis – were allowed to go to the Mughal court. The missionaries arrived in Lahore on 5 May 1595 (Maclagan, Jesuits and the Great Mughal, p. 53) and laid the foundations of a mission that would last until the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. On 7 September 1597, Manuel Pinheiro opened a residence and a church in Lahore, which served a small Christian community formed by Europeans, Armenians and a few native catechumens (Felix, ‘Jesuit missions in Lahore’, p. 78). In comparison with the previous two missions, the mission in Lahore presented some encouraging signs. These were reinforced by the farman of 1598 allowing the Jesuits to build a church in Cambay. However, the Portuguese authorities received the news of this farman with suspicion, fearing that such a church would attract many Portuguese merchants who would operate outside the sphere of influence of the Estado da Índia



akbar

115

(Flores and Saldanha, Firangis, p. 48). In 1601, following a petition by Manuel Pinheiro, Akbar signed a farman granting imperial protection to the Jesuit church and residence in Lahore. The document allowed Pinheiro to enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis the authorities in the town. Another important privilege granted by the emperor was the right of asylum, allowing fugitives from justice and renegades to seek refuge in the church (Felix, ‘Jesuit missions in Lahore’, p. 82). This act of imperial benevolence was followed by the farman of 1602, which expanded the privileges granted in the previous year by guaranteeing freedom of religion to all Christians living in the Mughal domains, and ending the persecution of Christian converts (Flores and Saldanha, Firangis, p. 48). This document was widely regarded as an important Jesuit victory and an encouraging sign for the future of the third mission. Despite the farmans of 1601 and 1602, the Jesuit residences and churches in Lahore were greeted with hostility by the local Hindu elites and the city’s sūbadār, Qulīj Khān. In 1604, he ordered the expropriation of the Jesuit properties on the grounds that part of the Jesuit estate, which had belonged to a Hindu named Pauseri, was the property of the emperor’s revenue. The missionaries disputed the sūbadār’s decisions and presented a petition to Akbar. The nishan of 1604, which was not signed by Akbar but by Prince Salīm, the future Jahāngīr, on his behalf, confirmed an imperial edict that instructed Qulīj Khān to restore the Jesuit property, stating that the estate of Pauseri was granted by Akbar to the Jesuits. Some of the issues behind the farmans of 1572 and 1573, the Portuguese cartaz system and the Mughal expansionist campaigns prompted Akbar to sign, on 29 March 1601, a farman addressed to Viceroy Aires de Saldanha. This document announced that the emperor would be sending an embassy to Goa led by one Cogetqui Soldan Hama (Khwājgī Sultān Aḥmad), accompanied by the Jesuit Bento de Góis, to find out about and collect European ‘rare pieces’, as well as recruit ‘skilled craftsmen’. Although the embassy seemed to be a moment of cultural exchange between Europeans and Mughals, its real aim was to discuss the cartaz system. Akbar was concerned with freedom of navigation in the ‘seas of Hindustan’ and was probably seeking an agreement with the Portuguese. The document also mentions that the Mughal ambassador would inform the viceroy on ‘other matters by word of mouth’. These matters were probably related to the Mughal campaigns in the Deccan and the Jesuit mission. Indeed, by the time Akbar had sent an ambassador to Goa, three other Mughal embassies went to Bijapur, Golconda and

116

akbar

Bidar, with the aim of securing their obedience after the conquest of the Deccan (Flores and Saldanha, Firangis, p. 45). Significance Akbar’s farmans and letters paved the way for one of the most interesting and long-lasting series of contacts between Muslims and Christians in the Early Modern period. The diplomatic contacts initiated by Akbar in 1572 were the starting point for a complex relationship between Portuguese and Mughals, which oscillated between moments of collaboration (such as the Luso-Mughal anti-Maratha alliance in the 18th century) and conflict (such as the destruction of the Portuguese Hughli enclave in 1632), and produced a vast quantity of sources, which deserve to be studied in more detail. The most significant consequence of Akbar’s contacts with the Portuguese Estado da Índia for Christian-Muslim relations was the Jesuit mission at the Mughal court. Although the mission failed to convert Akbar and his successors, or to establish a relevant Christian community in the Mughal Empire, the presence of the Jesuits was behind an interesting artistic exchange between western Europe and Mughal India which resulted in a series of Mughal paintings inspired by Christian and Western art. Painters such as Kesu Das, Manohar, Baswan and Kesu Khur used Christian images or made allusions to biblical figures in their work. Kesu Das, a Hindu, was probably the first painter in the Islamic tradition to paint a crucifixion – a Christian theme that many Muslims regarded as offensive (Bailey, Jesuits and the Grand Mogul, pp. 118-19). Much of this artistic exchange was shaped by the Mughal and Jesuit agenda. Akbar, and later Jahāngīr, were interested in manipulating the imagery of Western Christian art and its connections with some aspects of Islamic and even Hindu tradition to consolidate their ideological project of divine kingship. At the same time, the Jesuits used Western Christian art to promote their proselytising goals. One of the most interesting aspects of the third Jesuit mission was its initial investments in the production of an Indo-Persian Catholic literature. Following Akbar’s interest in Christian scriptures, Jerome Xavier, with the collaboration of ʿAbd al-Sattār, began to write a series of Gospel stories, catechisms, lives of Christ, mirrors of princes, treatises and lives of saints (Bailey, Jesuits and the Grand Mogul, p. 127). Some of these works, such as the Fuente de Vida or Mirʾāt al-quds, were originally written in Spanish or Portuguese and then translated into Persian (Xavier, Mirʾāt al-quds, p. 3). In these works, Xavier explored some connections



akbar

117

between Christianity and Islamic culture, such as the shared Neoplatonic and Aristotelian heritage, and included some references to Sufism (Bailey, ‘The truth-showing mirror’, pp. 384-5; Xavier, Mirʾāt al-quds, p. 26). Xavier’s Persian works influenced not only ʿAbd al-Sattār’s literary production, but also the poetry of Dara Shikoh, the son of Shāh Jahān, and such Mughal religious works as the Dabistān. Some works written by Xavier also reached Persia. In 1623, a Persian theologian named Sayyid Aḥmad ibn Zayd al-ʿĀbidīn wrote a refutation of the Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā (‘The truth-showing mirror’), a work written by Xavier in 1609 in Lahore. Zayd al-ʿĀbidīn’s work, ironically entitled Misqal-i-safā dar tajliyya-i Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā (‘The polisher to cleanse the impurities of The truth-showing mirror’), reached Europe via the Carmelite missionaries operating in Persia, and inspired a refutation written by the Franciscan Fillipo Guadagnoli, Apologia pro Christiana religione (Alam and Subrahmanyam, Writing the Mughal world, pp. 308-9). Exchanges between Jesuits and Mughals continued after the reigns of Akbar and Jahāngīr, though not with the same vitality. The lack of progress with the Muslim population and the religious orthodoxy of Shāh Jahān and Aurangzeb led the successors of the original members of the third mission, Jerome Xavier, Manuel Pinheiro and Bento de Góis, to target the Hindu population. Nevertheless, the fact that the mission lasted well beyond the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773 – the de facto end of the Jesuit mission was 1781, when the last missionaries handed it over to the Carmelites – provided a reasonably stable platform for exchange between the Catholic and Indo-Islamic worlds. Publications MS Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal – Cod. 3775, pp. 106-9 ( farman to Aires Teles, 13 December 1572; there is a copy in the Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, Cod. 170, fols 86-7) MS Lisbon, Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais/Torre do Tombo – Armário Jesuítico, Livro 28, fols 88v-89 ( farman to the Jesuits of Goa, December 1578) MS London, BL – Add. Ms. 9854, fol. 5 ( farman to the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, February 1583) MS Lisbon, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino – Cod. 1659, fol. 213 ( farman to the Jesuits of Goa, June 1590, Portuguese text; Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Goa, vol. 47, fol. 419 – Italian text)

118

akbar

MS Lisbon, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino – Cod. 1659, fols 213-14 ( farman to the Mughal officials, October 1590. Portuguese text; Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Goa, vol. 47, f. 420 – Italian text) MS London, BL – Add. Ms. 9854, fol. 20 (nishan of Prince Salīm to Qulij Khan, 1604) Diogo do Couto, Da Ásia . . . Década IX, Lisbon, 1786, pp. 82-4 (copy of the farman of 1573) A. da Silva Rego (ed.), Documentação para a história das missões do padroado Português do Oriente, Índia, Lisbon, 1958, vol. 12, pp. 431-2, doc. 48 (Portuguese trans. of the farman to the Jesuits of Goa, December 1578) Documentação ultramarina portuguesa, Lisbon, 1963, vol. 3 (edition of the farman to the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, February 1583) J. Wicki (ed.), Documenta indica, Rome, 1970, vol. 11, pp. 428-9, doc. 49 (Portuguese trans. of the farman to the Jesuits of Goa, December 1578) J. Wicki (ed.), Documenta indica, Rome, 1972, vol. 12, pp. 732-3, doc. 127 (edition of the farman to the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, February 1583) Correia-Afonso, Letters from the Mughal court, p. 1 (English trans. of the farman to the Jesuits of Goa, December 1578) Correia-Afonso, Letters from the Mughal court, pp. 121-2, Appendix B (English trans. of the farman to the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, February 1583) C.H. Payne, Akbar and the Jesuits, Delhi, 1996, pp. 48-9 (English trans. of the farman to the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, February 1583, based on Pierre du Jarric, Histoire des choses les plus mémorables) J. Wicki (ed.), Documenta indica, Rome, 1972, vol. 15, pp. 510-11, doc. 79 (edition of the farman to the Jesuits of Goa, June 1590) Wicki (ed.), Documenta indica, vol. 15, pp. 514-15, doc. 81 (edition of the farman to the Mughal officials, October 1590) Payne, Akbar and the Jesuits, pp. 46-8 (English trans. of the farman to the Mughal officials, October 1590, based on Pierre du Jarric, Histoire des choses les plus mémorables) F. Guerreiro, Relação annual das coisas que fizeram os padres da Companhia de Jesus, ed. A. Viegas, Coimbra, 1930, vol. 1, p. 11 (edition of the farman to Aires de Saldanha, 29 March 1601)



akbar

119

Payne, Akbar and the Jesuits, pp. 46-8 (English trans. of the farman to Aires de Saldanha, 29 March 1601) Documentação ultramarina portuguesa, Lisbon, 1963, vol. 3, pp. 7-29 (Portuguese trans. of the nishan of Prince Salīm to Qulij Khan, 1604) Studies Jerome Xavier, Mirʾāt al-quds (Mirror of holiness). A life of Christ for Emperor Akbar, ed. P.M. Carvalho, trans. W.M. Thackston, Leiden, 2012 H. Bashir, Europe and the Eastern other. Comparative perspectives on politics, religion and culture before the Enlightenment, Plymouth, 2012 J. Flores, ‘The sea and the world of the Mutasaddi. A profile of port officials from Mughal Gujarat (c. 1600-1650)’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 21 (2011) 55-71 M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam, Writing the Mughal world. Studies on culture and politics, New York, 2011 J. Flores, ‘Distant wonders. The strange and the marvellous between Mughal India and Habsburg Iberia in the early seventeenth century’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 49 (2007) 553-81 J. Flores, ‘Comunicação entre impérios. A engrenagem das relações entre Goa e a corte mogol durante o governo do conde de Linhares (1629-1635)’, in M.E. Madeira Santos and M. Lobato (eds), O domínio da distância. Comunicação e cartografia, Lisbon, 2006, 29-43 Saldanha, Iustum imperium Subrahmanyam, Mughals and Franks Flores, ‘Firangistân e Hindustân’ Flores and Saldanha, Firangis S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Du Tage au Gange au XVIe siècle. Une conjoncture millénariste à l’échelle eurasiatique’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 1 (2001) 51-84 G.A. Bailey, ‘The truth-showing mirror, Jesuit catechism and the arts in Mughal India’, in J.W. O’Malley (ed.), The Jesuits. Cultures, sciences, and the arts, 1540-1773, Toronto, 1999, vol. 1, 380-401 G.A. Bailey, The Jesuits and the grand Mogul. Renaissance art at the Imperial Court of India, 1580-1630, Washington DC, 1998 Correia-Afonso, The Jesuits in India, 1552-1773 Correia-Afonso, Letters from the Mughal court

120

akbar

M.N. Pearson, Merchants and rulers in Gujarat. The response to the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, Berkeley CA, 1976 Correia-Afonso, Jesuit letters and Indian history Camps, Jerome Xavier S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire Beveridge, Akbar nāma of Abū l-Faz̤l H. Heras, The conversion policy of the Jesuits in India, Bombay, 1933 Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mughal Father Felix, ‘Mughal farmans, parwanahs and sanads issued in favour of the Jesuit missionaries’, Journal of the Panjab Historical Society 5 (1916) 1-53 Father Felix, ‘Jesuit missions in Lahore’, Journal of the Panjab Historical Society 5 (1916) 55-99 H. Hosten, Jesuit missionaries in northern India and inscriptions on their tombs, Agra (1580-1803), Calcutta, 1907 João Vicente Melo

Firishta Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī Date of Birth About 1550 Place of Birth Astarābād, Persia Date of Death About 1623 Place of Death Sultanate of Bijapur

Biography

Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī, who took the pen name Firishta, was born in Astarābād in northern Persia on the south-eastern tip of the Caspian Sea around 1550, though estimates of the year of his birth vary. P. Hardy, following Storey, calculates his birth to be about 1570, but the estimate of S. Subrahmanyam, following Mohl, of 1550 seems more reasonable considering the positions of responsibility Firishta held under various Indian rulers as early as the 1580s (Hardy, ‘Firishta’; Subrahmanyam, Courtly encounters, pp. 45, 232). Since no further reference to Firishta is found after 1623, this is often considered the year of his death. He accompanied his father, Ghulām ʿAlī Hindū Shāh, on his immigration to Ahmadnagar on the Deccan Plateau of southern India, ruled at the time by the Niẓām Shāhī dynasty. Ghulām ʿAlī was appointed as tutor to the sultan’s princes, and Firishta would have received his education as their schoolfellow (Briggs, ‘Essay’, p. 342). After his father’s death he was appointed to the royal guard, in which position he remained loyal to the sultan during a rebellion by one of the princes. When this revolt proved successful, and his patron, the sultan, was put to death in 1588, Firishta was spared but found it necessary to emigrate further south to Bijapur, ruled by the Shīʿī dynasty, the ʿĀdil Shāhīs, where, as of 1590, he again served in the military under the reigning sultan, Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II. He was also entrusted with diplomatic responsibilities such as leading an embassy to the Mughal ruler Jahāngīr in northern India. Around 1594, the sultan commissioned Firishta to write a general history of the Muslims of India along the lines of other histories such as Rawz̤at al-ṣafā, written for a Persian ruler at the close of the 15th century, and the Tabaqāt-i Akbarī by Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad and the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh by ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī, both completed

122

firishta

shortly before that time under the patronage of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Subrahmanyam suggests that the sultan of Bijapur commissioned the work not only to highlight the history of the Muslims in the Deccan but also as part of a cultural rivalry with the growing Mughal Empire (Courtly encounters, p. 46). Firishta is also known to have completed a work on Indian medicine, though his history is his best-known work.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī, Gulshān-i Ibrāhīmī Secondary S. Subrahmanyam, Courtly encounters. Translating courtliness and violence in early modern Eurasia, Cambridge MA, 2012 G.R.G. Hambly, art. ‘Ferešta, Tārīḵ-e’, in Encyclopaedia Iranica P. Hardy, art. ‘Firishta’, in EI2 C.A. Storey, Persian literature. A bio-bibliographical survey, London, 1927, vol. 1 H.M. Elliot, ‘Táríkh-i Firishta of Muhammad Kásim Hindú Sháh, Firishta’, in H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson (eds), The history of India as told by its own historians. The Muhammadan period, vol. 6, London, 1875, 207-18 J. Mohl, ‘Tarikh-i-Ferishta’, Journal des Savants (1840) 212-26, 354-72, 392-403 J. Briggs, ‘Essay on the life and writings of Ferishta’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1829) 341-61

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Gulshān-i Ibrāhīmī, Tārīkh-i Firishta, ‘History’ of Firishta Tāʾrīkh-i Nawras-nāma, ‘History of the rise of the Mahomedan power in India’ Date 1606 Original Language Persian Description The Gulshān-i Ibrāhīmī, commonly referred to as the Tārīkh-i Firishta, is a general history of Muslim rulers with a focus on the spread and rule of Islam in India. It consists of 12 maqālas (chapters), preceded by an introduction summarising the history of Hindu rule in India and the arrival of Muslim rule. Each maqāla focuses on the history of Muslim rule in a particular region of India, considerably expanding on the details



firishta

123

contained in histories written previously. The 12 chapters are followed by a conclusion giving an account of the geography and climate of India, and by a section containing biographies of mashāʾikh (Muslim holy men) influential in Muslim history in India. Firishta completed his first edition of the work in Persian in 1606, dedicating it to the sultan with the title Gulshān-i Ibrāhīmī. He continued to revise and add to the work, completing another edition in 1609 with the new title, Tārīkh-i Nawras-nāma, in honour of the city of Nawraspur built by his patron, the sultan. The work is based on wide research and the reading of existing histories. The author lists 35 written histories on which he relied, in addition to which some 20 other books are referenced occasionally (Briggs, ‘Essay’, p. 348). Large sections of original material are also included, including oral traditions not found in histories written earlier. A unique contribution is the first-hand account Firishta gives of Muslim rulers in the Deccan. The work also provides a perspective on the continuing relationships between the Muslim sultans of the Deccan and the Safavid rulers of Persia, a perspective Firishta was especially qualified to give, considering his origins in northern Persia. The work was well received, as is evidenced by numerous copies that were made, and became the basis of subsequent works by Muslims writing on the history of India. With the beginnings of British Orientalist scholarship in the late 18th century and into the 19th century, the Tārīkh-i Firishta was acclaimed as an accurate and authoritative history of Muslim rule in India and was regularly translated (Dow, History of Hindostan; Anderson, ‘Account of Malabar’; Scott, Ferishta’s History; Briggs, History; Dowson, ‘Introduction’; Mohl, ‘Tarikh-i-Ferishta’). Of the numerous MSS of Tārīkh-i Firishta, some are listed in Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum, and in the Fihrist database, which lists 13 MSS of varying lengths, an example from the medium length range being MS Codrington/Reade no. 63, which covers 576 folios. Thanks to his unique focus on the Muslims of the Deccan, the arrival of the Portuguese, their military incursions into Indian territories, and their attempts forcibly to control the spice trade are all subjects included in Firishta’s history. In the third maqāla, in the section on the ʿĀdil Shāhī dynasty of Bijapur, Firishta states that, in 1509, the Christians initiated a surprise attack on the city of Goa, killing its governor and many Muslims. He goes on to relate that the sultan of Bijapur retaliated, drove out the Europeans and killed many of them. The Europeans subsequently returned and regained Goa through siege and by large bribes given to the governor. The new ruler of Bijapur negotiated a peace treaty with

124

firishta

the Europeans, agreeing that they should retain the region in exchange for agreeing to refrain from invading further territory. Another instance of inter-religious cooperation occurred in 1549, when the Portuguese at Goa first gave refuge to a rebellious prince and then joined his military ranks in his unsuccessful attempt to seize the throne in Bijapur (Briggs, History, vol. 3, pp. 29-30, 34, 96-101). Later in the same maqāla, in the section on the sultans of the Niẓām Shāhī dynasty of Ahmadnagar, Firishta writes of events that would have occurred just prior to his own arrival in the region. One of the sultans besieged the Portuguese fortress at Revdanda or Chaul, but was forced to lift the siege after several months when the enemy showed no signs of weakening, being reinforced with provisions from the sea with the help of Niẓām Shāhī’s officers, whom they had bribed with gifts, and wine in particular. A later sultan returned to Chaul in 1592, this time successfully driving out the Portuguese, at least initially. The Portuguese returned with reinforcements and defeated the Muslims, destroying the fort (Briggs, History, vol. 3, pp. 254, 284-6). In the fourth maqāla, in the section dealing with the Gujarat sultanate, Firishta returns to the account of the initial arrival of the Portuguese in the region. ‘In the year 913 [1507], the infidel Europeans, who had of late years usurped the dominion of the ocean, endeavoured to occupy for themselves some port on the Guzerat coast, on which they wished to settle.’ He recounts the combined attack by Amir Husain with his fleet from Egypt and by Malik Ayāz, ruler of Diu, against the Portuguese and their subsequent victory. Here the result is given an uncharacteristically religious colouring, possibly reflecting Firishta’s reliance on another account of the event. The Muslims who were killed are described as having been honoured with the crown of martyrdom, while the Portuguese infidels were despatched to infernal regions (Briggs, History, vol. 4, pp. 74-5). Later in the chronicle, mention is made of European captives who were circumcised and forcibly converted to Islam (Briggs, History, vol. 4, p. 109). Another attempt by the Portuguese to take Diu in 1531 was also repelled, and Firishta records that they left behind their guns, including one of the largest ever seen in India – one requiring the construction of a special cart to transport it. These guns would later be used in battles by the Gujaratis against the advancing Mughal troops under Emperor Humāyūn (Briggs, History, vol. 4, pp. 123-7). A few years later, the Portuguese did take Diu, and offered to assist Bahādur Shāh, the sultan of Gujarat, in his fight against the Mughals. However, the treaty



firishta

125

unravelled, and Firishta reports that the Portuguese treacherously lured the sultan onto a boat and killed him (Briggs, History, vol. 4, pp. 130-1). In the eleventh maqāla, the author recounts the history of the Muslims in Malabar, beginning with an acknowledgement of the presence of Christian and Jewish communities in India prior to the spread of Islam. When he describes the initial conversions to Islam and the growth of the Muslim colonies and trading ports, he notes that the Christians and Jews were offended and became the determined enemies of the Muslims. However, as various regions of India came under the rule of Muslim dynasties, the Christians were unable to engage in any overt acts of hostility towards the Arab trading community in Malabar prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in Calicut in 1498. The following year, more Portuguese arrived, attacked those who resisted them, and made agreements with the friendly Raja of Cochin, who permitted them to establish a fortified factory as well as to destroy a mosque and build a chapel on its ruins (Briggs, History, vol. 4, pp. 531-3). The coming of the British is briefly mentioned in connection with the Mughal Emperor Jahāngīr granting them permission to build a factory at Surat in Gujarat in 1611. Firishta distinguishes their Christianity from that of the Portuguese by stating that the British believe that Jesus was a servant and a prophet of God; that there is only one God and that he is without equal; and that he has no wife or son, unlike the belief of the Portuguese (Briggs, History, vol. 4, pp. 540-1; Anderson, ‘Account’, p. 303). Significance The significance of Tārīkh-i Firishta for the history of Christian-Muslim relations lies in its importance as an influential history of the Muslims of India, particularly of the Deccan in southern India – a region that is treated more cursorily by the historians associated with the Mughal Empire. Because the Mughal emperors had no ambitions to control the Indian Ocean, they quite readily made treaties and trade agreements with various European embassies. The Muslim dynasties in the Deccan, however, were closely tied to the numerous Muslim trading communities along the coast, whose freedoms were being curtailed by the Portuguese efforts to monopolise trade. These sultans were also forced to confront the military invasions of Portuguese forces into their territories. While one could expect a Muslim historian such as Firishta, who was patronised by one of these Muslim sultans, to be harsh in his denunciation of the Christian invaders, his rhetoric is surprisingly muted, and his analysis relatively even-handed. This is consistent with his stated intention to

126

firishta

present a simple history, one that is ‘direct, plain and unadorned, and remarkably free of unctuous eulogy’ (Hambly, ‘Ferešta, Tārīḵ-e’). While at times he does invoke themes of jihad and discusses the combatants in terms of the religious identities, he more frequently focuses on their political affiliations. In addition, while he regularly characterises the Portuguese as treacherous and destructive, he does not hesitate to use those same characterisations for some Muslims, pointing out that several times it was the treachery of Muslims that made a victory by the Portuguese possible. His description of the British and their distinctive religious beliefs is intriguing, despite its brevity. Firishta evinces his concern for the unity of God and his repugnance at what he considers the Portuguese violation of the unity through their worship of Jesus as the Son of God, and their veneration of Mary, which he construes as the equivalent of making her the wife of God. Since both the British Anglicans and the Portuguese Roman Catholics would have held to a belief in the Trinity, Firishta’s misperception of the faith of the British may be a consequence of his relatively brief exposure to them or perhaps due to a deliberate misconstruction on the part of British traders or embassies in an effort to distinguish themselves from their Portuguese rivals and gain a trading advantage. A further significance of the work is the impact that it had on British perceptions of Muslims, especially Muslims in India. Because it was repeatedly translated into English and because it was used as an authority by other historians in their compositions, it would have shaped their knowledge of the spread and dominance of Islam in India and provided a means of comparison with their own rule in India. Publications There are numerous MSS of Tārīkh-i Firishta. Some are listed in C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1879, vol. 1, pp. 225-8 (lists 10 MSS held at the British Museum) and in the Fihrist database which lists 13 MSS; http://www.fihrist.org.uk/profile/ person/33cee3f7-c540-4959-bcec-682cd413cd20. Surveys of MSS, publica­ tions and translations of the Tārīkh-i Firishta can be found in D.N. Marshall, Mughals in India. A bibliographic survey, vol. 1: Manuscripts, London, 1967, pp. 143-5, and in M.R. Nasiri, ‘Peshguftār’, in Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī, Tārīkh-i Firishta, Tehran, 2009, vol. 1, pp. xviii-xlii.



firishta

127

A. Dow (ed. and trans.), The history of Hindostan, from the earliest account of the time to the death of Akbar, translated from the Persian of Mahummud Casim Ferishta of Delhi, London, 1768 (repr. New Delhi, 1973, London, 2000; English paraphrase of the first two sections) J. Anderson (trans.), ‘Account of Malabar, and the rise and progress of the Mussulman religion in that country, from Ferishtah’s general history of Hindustan’, The Asiatic Miscellany 2 (1786) 279-305 (English trans. of section 11) J. Scott, Ferishtas History of Dekkan from the first Mahummedan conquests. With a continuation from other native writers, of the events in that part of India, to the reduction of its last monarchs by the Emperor Aulumgeer Aurungzebe, 2 vols, Shrewsbury, 1794 (English trans. of section 3) J. Briggs (trans.), History of the rise of the Mahomedan power in India, till the year A.D. 1612, translated from the original Persian of Mahomed Kasim Ferishta, 4 vols, London, 1829 (repr. Calcutta, 1908 and 1966; Cambridge, 2013) Firishta, Gulshān-i Ibrāhīmī or Tārīkh-i Firishta, 2 vols, Bombay, 1832 Firishta, Tārīkh-i Firishta, 2 vols, Lucknow, 1864-5 (repr. 1943-5) M.K.A.K. Mushtāq (ed.), Tārīkh-i Firishta, 3 vols, Kanpur, 1864-84 J. Dowson (trans.), ‘Introduction to Firishta’s history’, in H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson (eds), The history of India as told by its own historians. The Muhammadan period, vol. 6, London, 1875, 532-69 A.H. Khwāja (trans.), Tārīkh-i Firishta, 2 vols, Lahore, 1962 (Urdu trans.) Narendar Bahādur Srīvāstavā (trans.), Tārīkhe Fariśtā. Mullā Muhammada Qāsima Hindū Ś āha ‘Fariśtā’ dvārā Fārasī bhāshā meṃ racita ‘Tārīkhe Fariśtā’, Lucknow, 2003 M.R. Naṣīrī (ed.), Tārīkh-i Firishta, 2 vols, Tehran, 2009 Studies A. Munfarid, ‘Tārīkh-i Firishta’, in G.H. Adel, M.J. Elmi, and H. TaromiRad (eds), Historical sources of the Islamic world. Selected entries from Encyclopaedia of the world of Islam, London, 2013, 227-9 Subrahmanyam, Courtly encounters A. Roy, ‘Indo-Persian historical thoughts and writings. India 1350-1370’, in J. Rabasa et al. (eds), The Oxford history of historical writing, vol. 3: 1400-1800, Oxford, 2012, 148-72 Hambly, art. ‘Ferešta, Tārīḵ-e’

128

firishta

Hardy, art. ‘Firishta’ S. H. Hodiwala, Studies in Indo-Muslim history, Bombay, 1939 Storey, Persian literature, vol. 1 Elliot, ‘Táríkh-i Firishta’ Mohl, ‘Tarikh-i-Ferishta’ Briggs, ‘Essay on the life and writings of Ferishta’ Alan Guenther

Qāḍī Muḥammad Qāḍī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; Muḥammad al-Kālikūtī Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Calicut Date of Death 1616 Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Qāḍī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, also known as Muḥammad al-Kālikūtī, was a qāḍī (Muslim judge) of Calicut, Kerala, India. Muslims of Kerala are known as the Mappilas, and are the descendants of Arab traders who married Kerala Hindu women. Qāḍī Muḥammad was also a prominent poet, who wrote in Arabi-Malayalam, a system of writing Malayalam, the vernacular language of Kerala, using the Arabic script with special orthographic symbols (Miller, Mappila Muslims of Kerala, p. 289). He authored numerous works, including Fatḥ al-mubīn in Arabic and Muhyiddīn māla in Arabi-Malayalam. His family was one of the few families in Calicut who were highly regarded for their religious knowledge and community leadership. He received his Islamic education from his father, Qāḍī ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and other notable Muslim scholars, including Qāḍī Muḥammad I, Shaykh Usmān, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Maqdūm Maʿbari (Moulavi and Abdulkarim, Mahathaya, pp. 150-1). He acquired a profound knowledge of Arabic grammar, mathematics, astronomy, tajwīd al-Qurʾān (science of recitation of the Qur’an) and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The strategic location of Kerala in the ancient world of the Indian Ocean and the availability of pepper, which was grown only in Kerala until the Dutch spread its cultivation to Java, along with other valuable products, attracted many merchants from around the globe to the Kerala coast (Mohamed, ‘Arab relations’, p. 8). Prior to the advent of Islam in Arabia, there had been Arab settlements on various parts of the Kerala coast and, during the time of the Prophet Muḥammad, Arab merchants, especially those from Yemen and the Ḥaḍramawt, sailed back and forth between Arabia and Kerala quite frequently. Many Mappila Muslims trace their origins to the Ḥaḍramawt town of Tarīm (Miller, Mappila Muslims, pp. 41-2), so it is quite possible that Arab Muslim traders propagated Islam in Kerala soon after it had spread throughout Arabia. Sufis,

130

qāḍī muḥammad

who accompanied merchants and traders to distant lands in the East, played a major role in the growth of the Muslim community in Kerala. Between the 13th and 16th centuries, a number of Sufi orders with roots in Arabia, Persia and Khorasan existed among the Mappilas. Each order had its own mosque and khānqāh (Sufi lodge), and composed poems and prayers praising their Sufi saint (shaykh) and attributing to him various miracles (baraka). The claims of the various orders created tensions and resulted in disunity among the Mappilas. It was in this context that Qāḍī Muḥammad began his work in ­Calicut. According to Moulavi and Abdulkarim, he was a proponent of the Qādiriyya order of the 11th-century Persian Sufi saint, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, and tried to organise the Mappilas under the Qādiriyya order and create a sense of unity among them. In 1607, he composed Muhyiddīn māla in praise of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, a work considered second in importance only to the Qur’an among the Mappilas. It is sung reverently in every Mappila household at appointed hours, and girls were expected to memorise it before their marriage (Kunhali, Sufism in Kerala, p. 10). In Mappila literature, a māla is a poem written in Arabic metre, praising the spiritual qualities and miracles of Sufi saints or heroic events from the history of the community. At the same time, mālas are also prayers to these saints. Among the Muslims of Kerala, there are more than 300 popular mālas in circulation of which the Muhyiddīn māla is the earliest still in existence. As the major part of their revenue derived from customs and other duties levied on spices and other commodities, the local rulers of ancient Kerala were eager to attract foreign merchants to their ‘kingdoms’. In the medieval period, the Zamorins of Calicut became the single most powerful group of rulers of Kerala. According to Miller, it was the ­Zamorins’ coalition with the Mappilas and the Arab traders that culminated in their economic and political ascendancy (Mappila Muslims, pp. 53-4). In response to the services received from them, the Zamorins permitted the Muslim rulers to monopolise the spice trade of Calicut, the biggest port of the Indian Ocean trade routes. As a result, the Muslims grew into a wealthy and powerful community until the arrival of the Portuguese in Kerala towards the end of the 15th century, when Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut (1498). The Portuguese monopoly on the spice trade of the Kerala coast is considered to be ‘the most traumatic of events in the history of Mappilas’ (Miller, Mappila Muslims, p. 60), transforming them into a poor and weak community economically, socially and politically. In order to withstand the Portuguese assaults, the Mappilas under



qāḍī muḥammad

131

the leadership of the Zamorins fought with them for 150 years. Qāḍī Muḥammad and his contemporary, Zayn al-Dīn al-Maʿbarī, who wrote Tuḥfat al-mujāhidīn, provided spiritual leadership for the resistance in the 16th and 17th centuries.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary G.P.M. Hudawi, Spiritual leadership in anti-colonial struggle. A study of life and works of Qazi Muhammad al-Kalikuti, New Delhi, 2014 V. Kunhali, Sufism in Kerala, Calicut, 2004 K.M. Mohamed, ‘Arab relations with Malabar Coast from 9th to 16th centuries’, The Malabar 1 (2001) 7-15 R.E. Miller, Mappila Muslims of Kerala. A study in Islamic trends, rev. ed., Madras, 1992 C.N.A. Moulavi and K.K.M. Abdulkarim, Mahathaya Mappila sahithya parampariam [Great Mappila literary tradition], Calicut, 1978

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Fatḥ al-mubīn li-muḥibb al-Muslimīn al-Sāmirī ṣāḥib Kālikūt, ‘The manifest victory of the Zamorin of Calicut, lover of Muslims’ Date Between 1579 and 1607 Original Language Arabic Description Fatḥ al-mubīn li-muḥibb al-Muslimīn al-Sāmirī ṣāḥib Kālikūt (‘The manifest victory of the Zamorin of Calicut, lover of Muslims’), popularly known as Fatḥ al-mubīn, is an epic poem that narrates the history of the demolition of the Portuguese fort at Chaliyam, to the south of Calicut, by joint Hindu and Muslim forces, under the able leadership of the Hindu ruler, the Zamorin, in 1571. The date of the composition of the poem is uncertain, variously estimated from around 1585 (Ottappilakkool, ‘Role of the ulama⁠ʾ  ’, p. 134) to as broad a range as between 1579 and 1607 (Suhail, ‘Muslim community of Malabar’, p. 176). This makes it contemporary with Tuḥfat al-mujāhidīn written by al-Maʿbarī in 1571, which addressed the arrival of the Portuguese more generally. The poem consists of 537 lines and is written in Arabic.

132

qāḍī muḥammad

The epic poem elaborately praises the ‘Muslim-loving’ Zamorin for his strong support of the Muslims in their fight against the Franks (al-Faranjī); Muslim leaders and qāḍīs, including Qāḍī Muḥammad’s own father, Qāḍī ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, were at the forefront of this war. It was written in Arabic because Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wanted Muslim rulers all over the world, especially those in Syria and Iraq, to know about the bravery of the Zamorin, so that they might extend their support to the Mappilas and join in their war. As the Mappilas became powerless and too weak to resist the Portuguese threat, Qāḍī Muḥammad argues, it was incumbent upon other Muslim rulers to help them in their struggle. At the same time, the poem severely condemns rulers, especially Muslim rulers, who received gifts from the Portuguese, signed treaties with them and betrayed the Zamorin’s secrets to them. Fatḥ al-mubīn enjoins all Muslims to engage in a jihad against the Portuguese traders. Qāḍī Muḥammad describes the advent of the Portuguese and their military expansion to gain control of the spice trade. They are described as the arch rivals of Allāh, of His Prophet, and of Muslims, accused of being ‘cross-worshippers’ and of bowing to idols, and are described as disgusting and unclean, comparable to cats and dogs. In their relations with other peoples, their cunning and brutality are evident (Suhail, ‘Muslim community of Malabar’, p. 178). The poem recounts the history of the establishment of Portuguese forts in Calicut by permission of the Zamorin, the deceitfulness of the Portuguese and their breaking the terms of the agreements, resulting in the attack by the Zamorin and his Muslim allies. The atrocities committed by the Portuguese include the destruction of temples and the forcible conversion of Muslims to Christianity. (Suhail, ‘Muslim community of Malabar’, pp. 180-1). However, Qāḍī Muḥammad also indicates that not all Hindu rulers were united in their opposition to the European invaders, giving the example of the Raja of Cochin, nor were all Muslim traders. This made it more difficult to defeat the Portuguese. The predominant theme, however, is praise of the Hindu ruler, the Zamorin, in leading the fight on behalf of his Muslim subjects. Significance Fatḥ al-mubīn is one of a few accounts of the defeat of the Portuguese in the battle for control of the Portuguese fort at Chaliyam in 1571. It is also notable for its recurring theme of Muslim-Hindu solidarity in the face of Christian aggression. The Hindu Zamorin is repeatedly praised for his assistance to the Muslim communities, and the joint Muslim-Hindu war against the Portuguese is described in terms of a jihad. Qāḍī Muḥammad



qāḍī muḥammad

133

interprets the conflict in religious terms in order to stir up local Muslims, as well as Muslim rulers in the Arab world, to unite them against the Portuguese invaders, who had seized control of the spice trade in the Indian Ocean and had begun to establish military and mercantile bases along the Indian coast. In his description of the foreigners, he focuses on their religious practices such as their veneration of icons and crucifixes, labelling them idolatrous. He also criticises their lack of ritual purity and their disgusting habits. His greatest condemnation, however, appears to be directed at their deceit in negotiations and at the atrocities they commit as part of their military expansion. While this criticism is not primarily religious in nature, mention is made of the destruction of holy places and forcible conversions to Christianity. Qāḍī Muḥammad was a key religious leader of the Muslims in Calicut, as both a qāḍī and a Sufi teacher. His education and subsequent publications illustrate the depth and breadth of his learning in Muslim religious sciences. His work in composing the Fatḥ al-mubīn thus demonstrates the importance he placed on uniting with others in opposing the Christian invaders. Publications Qāḍī Muḥammad, Phathul mubīn. Pratyakṣa vijayaṃ, Thrissur, 1982 (Malayalam trans.) Qāḍī Muḥammad, Fatḥ al-mubīn, Calicut, 1996 Qadi Muhammad, Fat’h al mubin. A contemporary account of the Port­ uguese invasion on Malabar in Arabic verse, ed. S. Dale, Kerala, 2015 (English trans.) Studies Hudawi, Spiritual leadership in anti-colonial struggle H. Randathani, Mappila Muslims. A study on society and anti colonial struggles, Kerala, 2007 E. Suhail, ‘Muslim community of Malabar and their literary struggles against the colonial powers. An evaluation’, New Delhi, 2007 (PhD Diss. Jawaharlal Nehru University) M. Ottappilakkool, ‘Role of the ulama in the anti-colonial struggle of India. A case study of Malabar’, Kerala, 2007 (PhD Diss. University of Calicut) Jose Abraham

ʿAbd al-Sattār ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Uncertain; Bijapur or Lahore Date of Death Unknown Place of Death Unknown

Biography

The author of the Majālis-i Jahāngīrī does not give his full name, either at the beginning or at the end of his text, but several indications nevertheless make clear that he must be the same ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī who is mentioned in several works of the Jesuit Hierònimo (Jerome) Xavier (1549-27 June 1617), who lived and worked at the Mughal court under Akbar and Jahāngīr. The main information on ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī is provided by his works Samra al-falāsifa and Majālis-i Jahāngīrī. In the foreword to Samra al-falāsifa, his father is named as the historian Muḥammad Qāsim Hindu Shāh Firishta (d. 1623). This is supported by Nabi Hadi (Hadi, IndoPersian literature, pp. 28-9, 181-2), although Naushāhī and Niẓāmī doubt it (Naushāhī and Niẓāmī, ‘Muqaddima’, p. 26). Hadi gives Bijapur as his place of birth (Hadi, Indo-Persian literature, pp. 28-9), while Naushāhī and Niẓāmī tend to interpret ʿAbd al-Sattār’s emphatic words about Lahore as a sign that this was his birthplace (Naushāhī and Niẓāmī, ‘Muqaddima’, p. 26). We have no information about ʿAbd al-Sattār’s youth and education. One can only assume that a classical Islamic education made of ʿAbd al-Sattār a man of letters, with considerable skills in the fields a classical Islamic scholar had to master. ʿAbd al-Sattār reached the Mughal court during the reign of Akbar, whom he served as an historian and translator. In Samra al-falāsifa, he reports that Akbar ordered him to learn the ‘Frankish language’ (zabān-i firang; i.e. Portuguese) and to study the religion and history of the Europeans (Nooraninejad, ʿAbd al-Sattār, p. 120). He studied under the supervision of Father Hierònimo Xavier and worked with him. ʿAbd al-Sattār is mentioned in two of Xavier’s works as a co-author or translator (Naushāhī and Niẓāmī, ‘Muqaddima’, p. 42). Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ (‘Mirror of holiness and history of the Messiah’), dated 1602, was written for Akbar. The work contains four chapters, dealing with



ʿabd al-sattār

135

the life and teachings of Jesus. Dāstān-i aḥwāl-i ḥawāriyān or Waqāʾiʿ ḥawāriyān dawāzda-gāna (‘The life and work of the Apostles’ or ‘Account of the twelve Apostles’) was written after the presentation of Mirʾāt al-quds, also for Akbar. Xavier wrote a number of other works at the Mughal court (see Camps, Jerôme Xavier), but many of them are not preserved, so it is impossible to verify whether ʿAbd al-Sattār contributed to more than these two. Although ʿAbd al-Sattār’s literary work does not appear in Mughal sources, he himself is mentioned in the Jahāngīrnāma twice: once when the emperor gives him an elephant, and then on the occasion of the new-year festival of the 14th year after Jahāngīr’s accession, when ʿAbd al-Sattār presents an autograph of Humāyūn Pādishāh to Jahāngīr. Majālis-i Jahāngīrī gives insight into ʿAbd al-Sattār’s position at court. He was a reader for the emperor, reciting accounts on various historical themes, and also a reviewer of books, deciding whether they should be copied for the court library (Majālis, p. 90). In the course of a succession of assemblies, the emperor calls for ʿAbd al-Sattār and often shows his appreciation of his knowledge in various fields of scholarship. From his self-representation in his own work and from the small number of references to him in other sources, it can be deduced that he belonged to a privileged group at the court, though certainly not the highest circles. Besides the Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, two works by ʿAbd al-Sattār are known. The first, Samra al-falāsifa or Aḥwāl-i Farangistān (‘The fruit of philosophy’ or ‘History of Europe’), dated 1603, deals with Roman and Greek philosophy and the history of the Roman Empire, including a treatise on seven Roman emperors. The Guzīde-ye Zafarnāma (‘Summary of the Zafarnāma’), dated 1615-16, was written for the Emperor Jahāngīr. It contains selected chapters of the Zafarnāma by Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, a Persian historiography on Timur and his successors written by Yazdī for Shāh Rūkh (r. 1405-47).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Samra al-falāsifa (MSS include MS London, BL – Or. 5893; MS Cambridge, King’s College – Browne Suppl. 770; MS Manchester, John Rylands University Library – Lindesiana, p. 177, no. 445) Nūr al-dīn Jahāngīr, The Jahangirnama. Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, trans. W.M. Thackston, Washington DC, 1999, pp. 226, 299 Nūr al-dīn Jahāngīr, The Tuzuk-i Jahāngīrī. Memoirs of Jahāngīr, ed. H. Beveridge, trans. A. Rogers, New Delhi, 2001, vol. 1, p. 389; vol. 2, p. 82

136

ʿabd al-sattār

ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī, Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, ed. A. Naushāhī and M. Niẓāmī, Tehran, 2006 Secondary A. Kollatz, Inspiration und Tradition. Strategien zur Beherrschung von Diversität am Mogulhof und ihre Darstellung in Maǧālis-i Ǧahāngīrī (ca. 1608-11) von ʿAbd al-Sattār b. Qāsim Lāhōrī (Narratio Aliena? 8), Berlin, 2016, pp. 69-92 S. Nooraninejad, ‘ ʿAbd al-Sattār va nuskhe-ye khaṭṭī samara al-falāsifa’, Ayīn-e mīrās 7 (2009) 117-35 A. Naushāhī and M. Niẓāmī, ‘Muqaddima’, in ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī, Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, ed. Naushāhī and Niẓāmī, pp. 1-5, 19-75 N. Hadi, History of Indo-Persian literature, New Delhi, 1995 A. Camps, Jerome Xavier S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire. Controversial works and missionary activity, Schöneck-Beckenried, Switzerland, 1957 C.A. Storey, Persian literature, London, 1927, vol. 1, p. 164 n. 1

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, ‘Night assemblies at the court of Nūr al-dīn Jahāngīr’ Date Between 1608 and 1611 Original Language Persian Description The Majālis-i Jahāngīrī is a report of nightly assemblies (majālis) at the Mughal court under the Emperor Jahāngīr. It covers the period 24 Rajab 1017-19 Ramaḍān 1020 AH (24 October 1608-15 November 1611 AD). The author ended his work only when Jahāngīr started his own autobiographical Jahāngīrnāma (Tuzuk-i Jahāngīrī). The work is divided into 122 chapters (in the edition, 278 pages), which represent dated reports. At the head of every chapter, the author gives the date of the assembly according to the hijrī era as well as in years of government counted from the accession of Jahāngīr. This dating paragraph is standardised and also contains a formulaic praise of the emperor, supplemented by a description of the fortunate courtiers venerating him. The chapters vary in length. There are very short assemblies that contain only one thematic unit, while other assemblies deal with a wider range of themes. In these assemblies, the conversation wanders from one topic to another, usually without any obvious connection. Discussions of Christian faith are integrated into this flow of topics. However, the disputes between Jesuits and the author or other Muslim scholars usually take more space than an average section within a



ʿabd al-sattār

137

Illustration 2. Celebrations for the accession of the Emperor Jahāngīr, with a Jesuit priest in the crowd (painting by Abū l-Ḥasan)

138

ʿabd al-sattār

chapter. Changes of content are often marked by leaps in time. ʿAbd al-Sattār gives both summaries and dialogues reported in vivid direct speech. He leads the reader by announcing leaps in time or elisions, and frequent references back are used to link conversation with previous assemblies. Thus the narrative’s location in space and time and its coherence can easily be understood. Apart from the reproduction of the conversations and short explanations within the text, ʿAbd al-Sattār does not give any further information concerning the historical background or events connected with the recorded dates. Accounts of disputes between the emperor, the author ʿAbd al-Sattār and other scholars on the Muslim side and the Jesuits on the Christian side are to be found in eight chapters of the Majālis. There are no similar discussions with representatives of other religions present in the empire. There are essentially two different patterns of discussion of Christianity: in chapters 1, 2, 30 and 87, Christian topics are discussed only between Muslim participants. In these chapters, the Jesuits either join the discussion only for a single contribution or are not mentioned among the participants, even though they may be present in the audience. The Christian arguments are presented, often in polemical way, by a Muslim participant. In Chapter 1, Naqīb Khān, one of the most important courtiers mentioned in the work, gives a polemical outline of the remarriage of widows according to Christian law. Jahāngīr and ʿAbd al-Sattār reject what he says and give examples to show that Christian practice is compatible with Islamic teachings. Only in the second part of the chapter is a Jesuit called from outside to confirm the author’s arguments. Jahāngīr now enters into discussion with him and makes him admit indirectly that Mughal custom concerning remarriage is better than Christian, although the Mughals do not forbid the latter. In Chapter 2, a legend concerning the emergence of hostility between Christians and Jews is discussed. There appears to be no Christian in the audience, and the discussion takes place only between the Muslim participants. The legend is similar to a story in Tarīkh-e Balʿamī, the Persian translation of al-Ṭabarī’s Ta⁠ʾrīkh, in which a Jewish hypocrite is identified as the originator of misunderstandings, and of the division of Christians into monophysites and diophysites. The same topic is again discussed in Chapter 87. Here, the subject is started by another noble, and a variation of the story is given by Jahāngīr himself. Although there are Jesuits in the audience, they do not take part in the discussion, nor are they referred to.



ʿabd al-sattār

139

In chapter 30, a Jesuit tells the story of how Joseph was chosen to be the Virgin Mary’s protector, as told in the Proto-Gospel of James. The emperor refutes this account and starts a discussion about alternative ways of understanding the story. After the initial presentation, the Jesuit does not participate further in the discussion, though he may still be present in the audience. Chapters 14, 29, 35 and 47 are structured differently. Here, the author presents extracts from religious disputations between the Jesuit(s), Muslim scholars and Jahāngīr. The author himself plays an important role in all of these discussions. He presents himself as the enactor of Jahāngīr’s intentions and points out the high esteem he enjoys. Chapters 14, 29 and 35 are completely dedicated to discussion of Christian concepts, while the topic changes in chapter 47 roughly in the middle of the chapter. Topics also change suddenly in the other chapters, e.g. when the emperor asks a new question unrelated to the topics discussed before. The author also makes abrupt interruptions in the middle of a discussion, jumping to accounts of different discussions in the same evening. These interruptions are usually marked by leaps in time. As the author does not seem to have imposed any order on the succession of topics, the account appears like a report written ‘live’ during the course of the assembly. It is conspicuous that the discussions are limited to a few aspects of Christianity, which are covered over and over again. They include a number of broad topics, such as distortion of scripture (taḥrīf ), the doctrine of the two natures of Christ and the miracles worked by Jesus, especially the raising of Lazarus, among others. A further central topic is the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. In many shorter passages within the chapters, the author uses his own (Islamic) biblical exegesis to make a case for the corruption of the Christian faith. He also enumerates ‘objections’ to aspects of the Christian faith, such as parts of the Eucharistic rite and particular teachings. The main point of misunderstanding between the Muslim and Christian discussants remains, as in many other documentations of Christian-Muslim dispute, the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, though in the Majālis the dispute is limited to the person of Jesus Christ, while God the Father and the Holy Spirit are not mentioned. To sum up, the topics dealt with in the disputes are the standard themes of Christian-Muslim controversies, discussed earlier in similar forms, e.g. in Akbar’s ʿibādat-khāna. They are also found in rudūd and ithbāt al-nubuwwa literature from different regions and times. ʿAbd

140

ʿabd al-sattār

al-Sattār thus sets out a standard narrative of Christian-Muslim disputes in a form adapted to the customs at the Mughal court under Jahāngīr. Significance The Majālis is of great value for the consideration of Christian-Muslim relations during the Mughal era. It offers an insight into relations between the Jesuits and the court from the Mughal and Muslim perspective, and thus can be seen as a counterpart to the Jesuit accounts. It also gives an idea of the significance of Christian thought at the Mughal court under Jahāngīr, and in connection with the consideration of the dīn-i ilāhī and the Mughal policy of religious tolerance (ṣulḥ-i kull). The disputations in the Majālis do not add significant arguments to the standard inventory of Christian-Muslim disputes. On the contrary, ʿAbd al-Sattār uses an argumentation similar to that of other polemical writings from the 16th and 17th centuries, and earlier. Publications One MS copy of the Majālis-i Jahāngīrī is preserved in private hands in Pakistan. This was used by Naushāhī and Niẓāmī for their edition. Its whereabouts are unknown following the death in 2002 of the owner Khalīl al-Rahmān Dawoodi in Lahore. According to Naushāhī and Niẓāmī, the manuscript was written in the 12th century AH in Indian nastaʿlīq and contained 197 folios. The manuscript is not complete; parts of chapter 109 up to chapter 118 are missing. ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī, Majālis-i Jahāngīrī. Majlis’hā-yi shabānah-ʼi darbār-i Nūr al-Dīn Jahāngīr az 24 Rajab 1017 tā 19 Ramaz̤ān 1020 H.Q. [Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, Report of night assemblies at the court of Nūr al-dīn Jahāngīr from 24 Rajab 1017 to 19 Ramaḍān 1020 AH (24 October 1608 to 15 November 1611)], ed. Naushāhī and Niẓāmī Kollatz, Inspiration und Tradition, pp. 289-550 (German trans.) Studies Kollatz, Inspiration und Tradition, pp. 13-288 M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Frank disputations. Catholics and Muslims in the court of Jahangir (1608-11)’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 46 (2009) 457-511 Nooraninejad, ‘ʿAbd al-Sattār va nuskhe-ye khaṭṭī Samara al-falāsifa’ S. Subrahmanyam, Explorations in connected history. Mughals and Franks, New Delhi, 2005 Anna Kollatz

François Pyrard de Laval Date of Birth Between 1570 and 1580 Place of Birth Probably Laval, France Date of Death Around 1621 Place of Death Unknown

Biography

François Pyrard wrote a detailed account of his ten years sailing in the Indian Ocean and travelling in India and parts of South-East Asia, but information about his life prior to his voyages is limited. He was probably born between 1570 and 1580 in Laval, on the River Mayenne, in western France. His writings give no information regarding his education or other aspects of his life before his voyage, and contemporary biographical accounts are also absent (Gray, ‘Introduction’, pp. xvii-xviii). Motivated by the twin desires to see the world and to get rich, he joined an expedition of two sailing vessels that set sail for India in 1601. He does not indicate whether he joined as a merchant who had invested in the voyage or whether he was one of the crew, though A. Gray suggests, by means of negative reasoning, that he may have been the ship’s purser (Gray, ‘Introduction’, pp. xviii-xx). Trade with the East Indies to that point had been dominated by the Portuguese and Spanish, and, in Pyrard’s opinion, the French had neglected to grasp opportunities that had arisen to engage in direct trade with Asian ports and had resigned themselves to dealing with the Iberian traders. He also accused the Portuguese and Spanish of mono­ polising the trade routes, driving away other European nations seeking to participate. The British East India Company had been formed in 1600, the year before he set out, and the Dutch equivalent, the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, was established in 1602. While Pyrard was part of the first French expedition to South India, the initial French commercial venture, the Compagnie des Mers Orientales, was not formed until 1604, and even then did not achieve the success of the English and Dutch companies. The small French fleet, with Pyrard’s ship, the Corbin, made its way down the coast of Africa, at times joining a Dutch fleet heading in the same direction. Problems with sickness, fierce storms, hostile Portuguese

142

françois pyrard de laval

ports and desertions tended to demoralise the crew. After a two-week rest in the Comoro Islands off the northern coast of Madagascar, the Corbin struck out east until the Maldives came into view. The ship foundered on the reefs near the Maldives and was wrecked. Pyrard and 40 of his shipmates made it to shore, many of them sick and exhausted. They were rescued by the Maldivians but declared to be captives of the ­Muslim ruler of the islands. Of the 40 crew members, only four would survive until rescue arrived in the form of an invading force from Bengal in 1607, possibly motivated by the lure of bounty and cannon from the ship. Because of his willingness to learn the language of the people, Pyrard had soon attracted the attention of the ruler, who gave him some privileges, including freedom to travel to the various islands of the Maldives, thus making his five-year captivity bearable (Gray, ‘Introduction’, pp. xxiii-xxv). After leaving the Maldives with the Bengali invaders, Pyrard continued his voyages around the Indian Ocean for another four-and-a-half years before finally returning home. He visited numerous ports along the Indian coast, often receiving a warm welcome because of a shared enmity against the Portuguese. But at other times he was imprisoned by the Portuguese, or pressed into service on one of their ships sailing to Ceylon and ports further east. He spent some time in Goa before finally boarding a ship headed for Europe via Brazil. He arrived back in Laval in February 1611, and soon after moved to Paris, where he wrote and published the account of his experiences. He would revise and publish two more editions before his death. The year of his death is not certain, but it was probably some time after the third edition of his book was published in 1619.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary F.M. de Vitré, Description du premier voyage faict aux Indes Orientales par les François, Paris, 1604 (repr. 1609; also in appendix to 1998 edition of Pyrard, vol. 2, pp. 905-28) F. Pyrard de Laval, Discours du voyage des François aux Indes Orientales, Paris, 1611 Secondary D. Margolf, ‘Wonders of nature, diversity of events. The Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval’, in G.J. Ames and R.S. Love (eds), Distant lands, diverse cultures. The French experience in Asia, Santa Barbara CA, 2003, 111-34



françois pyrard de laval

143

D.F. Lach and E.J. van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. 3: A century of advance, book 2: South Asia, Chicago IL, 1993 G. Bouchon, ‘A French traveller in Portuguese India (1601-1610). François Pyrard de Laval’, Studia 49 (1989) 301-13 A. Gray, ‘Introduction’, in A. Gray and H.C.P. Bell (eds), The voyage of François Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, and Brazil, London, 1887, ix-xliii J. Lefizelier, ‘Le voyageur François Pyrard est-il né à Laval?’ Bulletin de la Société de l’Industrie de la Mayenne 3 (1867) 57-80

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval; contenant sa navigation aux Indes-Orientales, aux Maldives, Moluques, au Brésil, ‘The voyage of François Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, and Brazil’ Date 1611 Original Language French Description The Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval was first published in Paris in 1611, the year François Pyrard returned to France. This first edition consists of one volume containing 12 chapters, running to 372 pages. The book was dedicated to Marie de Medici, who, after the death of her husband, King Henry IV, in 1610, was ruling France as regent for her son, King Louis XIII. Its full title is Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval; contenant sa navigation aux Indes-Orientales, aux Maldives, Moluques, au Brésil, &c.; avec la description des pays, moeurs, façons de faire, police, et gouvernement; du trafic et commerce qui s’y fait, des animaux, arbres, fruits, et autres singularities; divisé en deux parties, avec un petit dictionnaire de la langue des Maldives. The subsequent editions of 1615 and 1619 were considerably expanded from the first edition, with significant changes to the text, leading some scholars to suggest that they were not written entirely by Pyrard. The royal councillor Jérome Bignon has been suggested as the editor of the two-volume edition of 1615, and the cleric Pierre de Bergeron has been suggested as the editor or author of the 1619 edition, though other

144

françois pyrard de laval

scholars still accept Pyrard as the primary author (Holtz, L’ombre de l’auteur, 297-320; Margolf, ‘Wonders of nature’, pp. 114-15). Since he spent nearly half the duration of his voyage as a captive on the Maldives, Pyrard devotes about half his work to his observations and experiences there, and the rest to his later travels. His reason for writing was to share the knowledge he had gained in a practical way, assisting the French in expanding their influence in South Asia. In his dedication, he expresses his desire to present both the wonders of nature in unadorned prose and the ‘remarkable diversity of events and occurrences in the life of man’ (Margolf, ‘Wonders of nature’, pp. 111-12). Though his stay in the Maldives was unplanned and against his wishes, he realised that it had provided him with an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of the language and customs of the people beyond that of any other European. He felt that it was his divinely-given obligation to share that knowledge with the public and his country (Margolf, ‘Wonders of nature’, p. 115). The section containing his chronicle of the first five years of his travels begins with an account of his journey from France to the Comoro Islands. Then follows the shipwreck and rescue in the Maldives, and his fluctuating fortunes at the royal palace. At this point, he switches from a narrative of events to a topical description of the Maldives, particularly of the people, their religion, their wedding and funeral ceremonies, their apparel and their customs. He also analyses the system of government, the judiciary, the upper classes of society and the royal family. With regard to the history of the Maldives, he presents the genealogy of the king and the traditions dealing with the settling of the islands, as well as more recent history, such as accounts of the trading vessels from various nations that visited during his stay. The section on his experiences and observations of the Maldives concludes with his account of the invasion of the island and his consequent rescue by a Bengali force. The remainder of the work recounts his subsequent travels in Asia and his journey home to France. For the purpose of assessing his contribution to the history of ChristianMuslim relations, Pyrard’s chapter on the religion of the inhabitants of the Maldives is the most relevant. He begins with a detailed description of the mosques – their construction and layout, the functions of the various features, and the decorum expected of the worshippers. He explains that each mosque has its priest called a muʾadhdhin responsible for running it, and that a higher functionary leads the public prayers and delivers sermons. Mosque leaders are also responsible for teaching the people the



françois pyrard de laval

145

law of Muḥammad and teaching the children to read and write in both their native language and Arabic. He notes that males over the age of 15 pray in the mosque five times a day, and that the women pray at home, which is also permitted for men if they so choose. Anyone known not to pray is considered not to be a good Muslim. The author also provides details on the conduct of ablutions before prayers (Gray and Bell, Voyage, vol. 1, pp. 123-8). From the performance of daily rituals, the Voyage de François Pyrard then describes significant festivals such as the ceremonies involved in the circumcision of male children, the Friday prayers, new moon festivals, the month of fasting, the celebrations at the end of Ramadan, and the feast of the sacrifice coinciding with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Pyrard goes to great lengths to recount the great ceremony accompanying the Friday prayers at the main mosque on Malé, the ‘King’s Island’, describing the genuflections made by those praying. The longest description is devoted to customs during Ramadan, going into colourful detail regarding the activities in which various members of the family are engaged at different times of the day, and the restrictions that the populace faithfully observe. The celebrations and feasting following the end of the fast are also described. A common thread running throughout these descriptions is the king’s generosity to his subjects, providing them with the necessary means to celebrate. Pyrard closes his chapter on religion with an intriguing description of the celebration of mawlids, the birth anniversaries of Sufi saints and of Muḥammad. He describes the preparations, the decorations, the food, and especially the chanting or dhikr that transports the participants to a state of ecstasy. The detail with which all these are described is remarkable and evidence of sustained first-hand experience (Gray and Bell, Voyage, vol. 1, pp. 128-50). Significance François Pyrard’s description of the Maldives and their inhabitants is one of the very few accounts of these islands written by a European in the early modern era, and certainly the most detailed. While Jesuit priests and Portuguese – and later Dutch and English – travellers wrote numerous accounts of other communities throughout South Asia, the Maldives were for the most part ignored (Lach and van Kley, Asia, pp. 934-5, 945). So, the Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval became the standard work in Europe on the Maldives, providing information that was seen as authoritative for generations to come. The second half of his

146

françois pyrard de laval

work sheds light on a significant chapter of European trade with India, describing from a French perspective the attempts by the Dutch and the English, together with the Malabars, to break the Portuguese monopoly on trade in the Indian Ocean at the beginning of the 17th century (Gray, ‘Introduction’, pp. xlii-xliii). In his portrayal of Muslims and their beliefs and practices, Pyrard focuses mainly on practices, making only a couple of derogatory comments regarding their theological beliefs, once terming them ‘the superstition of their damnable and abominable errors’ and in another place the ‘accursed and false doctrine of Mahomet’ (Gray and Bell, Voyage, vol. 1, pp. 128, 266). However, in his detailed descriptions of their ablutions, their prayers and their festivals, he reveals respect and willingness to accept the sincerity of their rituals. As D. Margolf has noted, he appears impressed with their commitment to cleanliness and recognises similarities with the practices of French Catholics: ‘Throughout the narrative, Pyrard conveyed a sense of similarity between Maldivian and French society that showed that each could be understood in relation to the other, and he accomplished this without simplistic judgments of superiority or inferiority’ (Margolf, ‘Wonders of nature’, p. 119). Nevertheless, his prayer for release from ‘Mahometan servitude’ and for restitution to Christian soil where he could resume the exercise of his religion indicates that Christian practices were restricted under Muslim rule in the Maldives (Gray and Bell, Voyage, vol. 1, p. 310). The exquisite detail contained in the descriptions of the rituals and celebrations would have provided a vivid picture for his European audience, enabling them to experience the events along with the author. Much of the content is anecdotal, bringing religious practices to life in a way that a theological or technical analysis could not. It would appear that the author was welcomed as an observer and perhaps a participant in many of the events, giving him unique access to Islam as embodied by the inhabitants of the Maldives. He is careful to give gender and age distinctions, and what was required of each in the various prescribed rituals. He does not communicate a sense of mandated conformity, but rather the recurring motif of feasting highlights a mood of cheerful participation. Unlike parallel accounts from the Indian continent, Pyrard does not recount any public or even private religious disputes between him and the Muslims. His account would have been unique in that it



françois pyrard de laval

147

provided for its European readers a vivid insight into Islam as it was lived in daily, monthly and yearly cycles by the Muslims in the Maldives. Publications F. Pyrard de Laval, Discours du voyage des François aux Indes orientales, ensemble des diuers accidents, aduentures & dangers de l’auteur en plusieurs royaumes des Indes, & du seiour qu’il y a fait par dix ans, depuis l’an 1601. iusques en ceste année 1611. Contenant la description des païs, les moeurs, loix, façon de viure, religion de la plus part des habitans de l’Inde, laccroissement de la Chrestienté, le trafic & diuerses autres singularitez, non encore écrittes ou plus exactement remarquees. Traité et description des animaux, arbres & fruicts des Indes Orientales, obseruees par l’auteur, Paris, 1611; bpt6k8704854v (digitalised version available through BNF) F. Pyrard de Laval, Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval; contenant sa navigation aux Indes-Orientales, aux Maldives, Moluques, au ­Brésil, &c.; avec la description des pays, moeurs, façons de faire, police, et gouvernement; du trafic et commerce qui s’y fait, des animaux, arbres, fruits, et autres singularities; divisé en deux parties, avec un petit dictionnaire de la langue des Maldives, 2 vols, Paris, 1615 (expanded text including a dictionary of the Maldivian language) F. Pyrard de Laval, Voyage de François Pyrard, de Laval; contenant sa navigation aux Indes Orientales, Maldives, Moluques, Bresil. Les divers accidens, adventures & dangers qui luy font arrivez en ce voyage, tan ten allant & retournant, que pendant son sejour de dix ans dans ces païs la. Avec la description des moeurs, loix, façons de faire, police & gouvernement, du trafic & commerce qui s’y fait, des animaux, arbres, fruits, & autres singularitez, Paris, 1619 (last edition published before the author’s death; digitalised version available through Google books) F. Pyrard de Laval, Voyage de François Pyrard, de Laval; contenant sa navigation aux Indes Orientales, Maldives, Moluques, & au Bresil, & les divers accidens qui luy font arrivez en ce voyage pendant son sejour de dix ans dans ces Païs. Avec une description exacte des moeurs, loix, façons de faire, police & gouvernement, du trafic & commerce qui s’y fait, des animaux, arbres, fruits, & autres singularitez qui s’y rencontrent, ed. P. du Val, Paris, 1679

148

françois pyrard de laval

F. Pyrard, Viagem de Francisco Pyrard, de Laval, contendo a noticia de sua navegação ás Indias orientaes, ilhas de Maldiva, Maluco, e ao Brazil, e os differentes casos, que lhe aconteceram na mesma viagem nos dez annos que andou nestes paizes: (1601 a 1611) com a descripção exacta dos costumes, leis, usos, policia, e governo: do trato e commercio, que nelles ha: dos animaes, arvores, fructas, e outras singularidades, que alli se encontram: vertida do francez em portuguez, sobre a edição de 1679, trans. J.H.C. Rivara, 2 vols, Nova Goa, 1858-62 (Portuguese trans.) A. Gray and H.C.P. Bell (ed. and trans.), The voyage of François Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, and Brazil, 2 vols, London, 1887 (repr. Cambridge, 2010), (English trans.; Gray lists a number of additional editions or translations of portions of the work in French, German and English in his ‘Introduction’, pp. xxxii-xxxiii) X. de Castro and G. Bouchon (ed. and trans.), Voyage de Pyrard de Laval aux Indes orientales (1601-1611). Contenant sa navigation aux Maldives, Moluques, Brésil. Les divers accidents, aventures et dangers qui lui sont arrivés en ce voyage, tant en allant et retournant, que pendant son séjour de dix ans en ce pays-là, avec un petit dictionnaire de la langue des Maldives . . ., suivi en annexe de: La relation du voyage des Français à Sumatra de François Martin de Vitré, 1601-1603, Paris, 1998 (French trans. with an introduction by G. Bouchon) Studies C. Nocentelli, Empires of love. Europe, Asia, and the making of early modern identity, Philadelphia PA, 2013 G. Holtz, L’ombre de l’auteur. Pierre Bergeron et l’écriture du voyage à la fin de la Renaissance, Geneva, 2011 M. Harrigan, Veiled encounters. Representing the Orient in 17th century travel literature, Amsterdam, 2008 Margolf, ‘Wonders of nature, diversity of events’ D. van der Cruysse, Le noble désir de courir le monde. Voyager en Asie au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 2002 Lach and van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. 3: A century of advance, book 2: South Asia Bouchon, ‘French traveller’ Gray, ‘Introduction’, in Gray and Bell, Voyage of François Pyrard of Laval



françois pyrard de laval

149

A. Gray, ‘The Maldive Islands with a vocabulary taken from François Pyrard de Laval, 1602-1607’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 10 (1878) 173-209 Alan Guenther

Badāʾūnī Mulla ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Mulūk Shāh Badāʾūnī Date of Birth 1540 Place of Birth Todabhim, Rajastan, India Date of Death Approximately 1615 Place of Death Badaun, Rohilkhand, India

Biography

ʿAbd al-Qādir was born in Todabhim in eastern Rajastan, India, in 1540 and died in Badaun in 1615, though some scholars, such as Blochmann, have postulated an earlier date (Hardy, ‘Badāʾūnī’, following Storey, Persian literature, p. 437; Blochmann, ‘Badáoní’, pp. 142-3). At the time of his birth, Rajastan and other parts of north India were under the control of the Afghan Sur dynasty. ʿAbd al-Qādir’s father’s name was Mulūk Shāh, and the family lived in Bhusawar, also in eastern Rajastan. His maternal grandfather, Makhdūm Ashraf, taught him the basics of Arabic grammar. When he was about eight years old, he was taken by his father to Sambhal in the Moradabad district of Rohilkhand, where his studies continued. He studied the Qur’an and Ḥanafī fiqh (jurisprudence). At the age of 18, he accompanied his father to Agra, where he studied under Shaykh Mubārak Nagaurī, the father of Abū l-Faz̤l, who later was Badāʾūnī rival in Emperor Akbar’s court. After his father’s death in 1562, he moved from Agra to Badaun and continued his religious education under a number of Sufi shaykhs. After completing his education, Badāʾūnī joined the service of Ḥusayn Khān, a military and political official who had received a jāgīr (landrevenue assignment) from Akbar, serving as ṣadr with responsibility for administering land grants, providing for the poor, and overseeing religious functions such as leading prayers. After nine years, Badāʾūnī left Ḥusayn Khān’s service and was introduced to the Mughal emperor, Akbar, who was impressed with the intellect and debating skills he demonstrated at religious disputations that the emperor was patronising (Blochmann, ‘Badáoní’, p. 125). He entered the emperor’s service, receiving as payment a land grant in Bhusawar, but he eventually transferred it to Badaun. Akbar appointed him as one of the imams with responsibility for leading prayers on Wednesdays, ‘on account of the beauty of [his]



badāʾūnī

151

voice’ (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, pp. 231-2). Badāʾūnī considered the land grant to be inadequate remuneration for his services and his discontent increased when he enviously observed Abū l-Faz̤l, who had been introduced at court the same year, rapidly advancing in both influence and wealth. This resentment and animosity grew and took on a religious colouring as he observed the emperor, with the strong encouragement of Abū l-Faz̤l, departing from what Badāʾūnī considered the practice of orthodox Islam. His criticisms, however, appeared to have been covert while he continued to enjoy the emperor’s patronage, recorded in his history, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, and remained hidden until well after his death. In addition to his responsibilities as an imam, Badāʾūnī was also employed by the emperor in translating Hindu texts and writing historical and religious works. His first composition, Kitāb al-ḥadīth, was a collection of 40 traditions on the subject of waging jihad, and was presented to the emperor in 1547. In the area of translation, he was commissioned to translate the Mahābhārta and the Rāmāyana, two ancient Hindu epic poems. The translation of the latter took four years to complete. As to its historical merits, he noted in his Muntakhab al-tawārīkh that, because it claimed to present history from its beginnings but made no mention of Adam, the events it presented were not true at all and nothing but ‘pure inventions and simple imagination’ (Lowe, Muntakhabut-tawáríkh, p. 347). With regard to the spiritual consequences of a devout Muslim translating a work on Hindu gods, he declared that he fled to God for refuge and proclaimed the shahāda to protect himself. He also noted that his translation had been made in accordance with the strict command of the emperor and that ‘the translation of atheism is not atheism’ (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, p. 378). He worked on revisions to the Tārīkh-i alfī, a history of the first 1,000 years of Muslim history as commissioned by the emperor, as well as an abridgement of a history of Kashmir and a portion of Rashīd al-Dīn’s 14th-century history, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh to be translated into Persian. The text for which he is best known, however, is his Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, based largely on the Ṭabaqāt-i Akbarī which was completed by his friend and fellow-historian Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad in 1593. Badāʾūnī’s recension, however, was liberally accompanied by his own research and abundant anecdotes based on his first-hand experiences in the Mughal court. Because of its frank criticisms of the emperor and other leading figures of the regime, this history was kept hidden until at least ten years into the reign of Akbar’s successor, Jahāngīr. In addition to

152

badāʾūnī

his translations and historical works, he also composed a work entitled Najāt al-Rashīd on the subjects of Sufism, millennial movements, and vices of the soul and forbidden practices in Islam, perhaps once again obliquely denouncing some of the practices of his day (Moin, ‘Challenging the Mughal emperor’; Zilli, ‘Badauni revisited’). Because of his discontent at court, Badāʾūnī had hoped to be appointed to a vacant post in Ajmer, but the emperor eventually decided against awarding him the position because he valued his work as a translator too highly (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, p. 415-16). Thus he continued on at the Mughal court for approximately 40 years, at times falling out of the emperor’s favour and relying on friends and even rivals for assistance and restoration to favour.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, ed. K. Aḥmad, A. ʿAlī and W.N. Lees, 3 vols, Calcutta, 1865-9 W.H. Lowe (trans.), Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh by Abd-ul-Qádir bin Malúk Sháh known as al-Badáóní, vol. 2, Calcutta, 1884 M.B. Khān, Mirʾāt al-ʿālam, ed. S.S. ʿAlvī, 2 vols, Lahore, 1978 Secondary A.A. Moin, ‘Challenging the Mughal emperor. The Islamic millennium according to ‘Abd al-Qadir Badayuni’, in B.D. Metcalf (ed.), Islam in South Asia in practice, Princeton NJ, 2009, 390-402 I.A. Zilli, ‘Badauni revisited. An analytical study of Najat ur Rashid’, in I.H. Siddiqui (ed.), Medieval India. Essays in intellectual thought and culture, Delhi, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 143-68 F.Z. Abbas, Abdul Qadir Badauni, as a man and historiographer, Delhi, 1987 P. Hardy, art. ‘Badāʾūnī’, EI2 B.P. Ambashthya, ‘Evaluation of Badāyūnī and his Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh’, in W. Haig and B.P. Ambashthya (eds), Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh by ʿAbdu-lQādir ibn-i-Mulūk Shāh known as al-Badāonī, Patna, 1960, vol. 3, pp. ix-xxiv C.A. Storey, Persian literature. A bio-bibliographical survey, London, 1927, vol. 2, pp. 435-40 H. Blochmann, ‘Badáoní and his works’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 38 (1869) 105-44



badāʾūnī

153

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, ‘Selection of chronicles’ Tārīkh-i Badāʾūnī Date 1615 Original Language Persian Description The Muntakhab al-tawārīkh consists of three sections: the first is a history of Muslim rulers in India from the Ghaznavid dynasty to the reign of Humāyūn, son of Bābur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty; the second recounts the history of the first 40 years of the reign of Akbar, son of Humāyūn, with related anecdotes from the author’s own life; and the third contains the biographies of Sufi shaykhs, ʿulamāʾ (Muslim scholars), physicians and poets of his time. Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad had set a standard of historical writing at the end of the 16th century with his chronicle of Muslim rulers in India, entitled Ṭabaqāt-i Akbarī. In his first section, Badāʾūnī closely follows this history, but with some editorial changes to promote ‘on the one hand, the spread of the rule of Islam in the subcontinent by local Muslim kings, while on the other hand censuring the savagery of Muslim conqueror-kings from Central Asia’ (Anooshahr, ‘Mughal historians’, p. 277). In the oldest complete extant manuscript, MS Elliott 248, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (1730), the text covers 509 folios. It is the second section of the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh that is seen by many historians as making the most significant contribution because of the alternative it presents to the official account of the reign of the Emperor Akbar. Badāʾūnī’s contemporary and rival, Abū l-Faz̤l, was commissioned to write the official chronicle, Akbar-nāma, and helped shape the emperor’s views of his place in history and in religion. With the help of Abū l-Faz̤l, Akbar instituted reforms that restricted the power of the traditional ʿulamāʾ by confiscating their land grants and by proclaiming himself as the chief mujtahid (jurist) with ultimate authority to decide all law including the sharīʿa (Islamic law). Akbar then went on to introduce changes to Muslim practice that provoked Badāʾūnī’s condemnation. Badāʾūnī noted that these changes coincided with Akbar’s proclamation of a new millennium, and listed numerous practices previously prohibited that were now approved, and practices that had previously been considered Muslim that were now prohibited. Every

154

badāʾūnī

command and doctrine of Islam, he wrote, was now doubted and ridiculed (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, pp. 210-7). Although not systematic in its presentation of the new laws, this section of the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh is perhaps the only account of the specific changes introduced by Akbar. Two of the changes condemned by Badāʾūnī included adopting the Christian practice of ringing bells and exhibiting icons of the Trinity and crucifixes (Rehatsek, The Emperor Akbar’s repudiation, p. 51). Badāʾūnī went as far as to label Akbar’s beliefs and practices a new religion, dīn-i ilāhī, a designation that was subsequently adopted by the Parsi author of the Dābistān-i mazāhib and British Orientalists. The fact that the first three translations of the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh into English by Wilson, Rehatsek and Blochmann in the middle of the 19th century all focused on Akbar’s religious innovations attests to the fascination of British scholars with this new so-called religion. More recent studies have placed his actions in the context of Sufi practices, arguing that Akbar did not create a new religion, but that the vows he required are similar to the enrolling of new disciples by Sufi shaykhs (Richards, Mughal Empire, pp. 44-9; Lefèvre, ‘Dīn-i ilāhī’). Others argue that, although Badāʾūnī saw Akbar’s beliefs and practices as heretical, they were entirely compatible with other expressions of Islam at the time such as the Mahdavī movements and their belief that the dawn of the new millennium would not only overturn the old order, but would also herald the arrival of a divine king (Moin, ‘Islam and the millennium’, pp. 235-41). It has also been argued that Akbar conforms well to the paradigm of ‘intoxicated’ Sufis that valued the application of reason over strict conformity to Muslim sharīʿa, while others, like Badāʾūnī, who held to the sharīʿa as well as to mystical practices. would fit the paradigm of ‘sober’ Sufis (Pirbhai, Reconsidering Islam, pp. 71-89). Badāʾūnī expressed his belief that it was because Akbar was a sincere seeker after truth that he had established the ʿibādat-khāna (place of worship) at Fatehpur Sikri in 1575 as a place where religious scholars from various expressions of Islam were invited to come and participate in regular debates. However, the inability of the Muslim ʿulamāʾ to agree with each other and the verbal abuse and insults that resulted disillusioned Akbar, prompting him to widen the circle of participants to include teachers and experts of other religions as well (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, pp. 235-470). It was into this milieu, then, that Jesuit missionaries in Goa entered when they received an invitation to come to the Mughal court as representatives of Christianity.



badāʾūnī

155

Accordingly, Antonio Monserrate arrived at Akbar’s capital in 1578 with the first Jesuit mission, and Cristóbal de la Vega accompanied a second mission in 1591. The Jesuits participated in the debates before the emperor and recorded their impressions not only of the disputations but also of Akbar’s religious innovations (Hoyland, Commentary, pp. 37-40). While Abū l-Faz̤l’s history mentions the arrival of the Christians, it is Badāʾūnī who provides a fuller account of the visit from a Muslim perspective. He notes that in 1578 missionaries from Europe called ‘padres’ arrived, whose head is called pāpā and who promulgates religious ordinances for the people and exercises authority over kings. These missionaries ‘brought their Gospel to the King’s notice, advanced proofs of the Trinity, and affirmed the truth and spread abroad the knowledge of the religion of Jesus’ (Elliot and Dowson, ‘Muntakhabu-t tawáríkh’, pp. 528-9; Elliot’s translation here is preferable to that of Lowe). Badāʾūnī presents Akbar as responding positively, ordering that his second son should learn some lessons from the Gospel and treat it with respect, and that Abū l-Faz̤l should translate the Gospel into Persian. He notes that the invocation at the start of the lesson was changed from bi-smi llāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm (‘in the name of Allāh, the gracious and merciful’) to ai nām i tu Jesus o Kiristo which he translates as ‘O thou whose name is gracious and blessed’ (Blochmann, Ain i Akbari, p. 183). His conclusion to this account, however, is sharper, accusing the ‘accursed monks’ of applying the description and qualities of the Antichrist to Muḥammad. On another occasion, a trial by fire was proposed during one of the discussions that included Christians and others. One of the Muslims proposed that a fire shold be started and both the Christian priests and Muslim ʿulamāʾ should pass through it in the presence of the emperor, and that the ones who passed through unscathed would have proved the truth of their religion. The fire was lit, but none of the Christian priests had the courage to go through it, even though the instigator pulled on the sleeve of the coat of one of the priests, urging him to (Lowe, Muntakhabut-tawáríkh, p. 308). Other instances of Muslims encountering Christians in Muntakhab al-tawārīkh include a comment on the Portuguese military power in Gujarat, a territory that Mughal forces under Akbar were seeking to conquer. Badāʾūnī briefly mentions that the Portuguese ‘used to exercise all kinds of animosity and hostility against the people of Islam, and used to occupy themselves in devastating the country, and tormenting the pious’ (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, pp. 149-50). The other significant

156

badāʾūnī

conflict the Mughal Empire had with the Portuguese was over the latter’s attempt to control naval traffic, including people seeking to travel to Arabia for ḥajj. Badāʾūnī gives the account of one of the ʿulamāʾ who had issued a fatwa that the command to perform a pilgrimage was no longer binding because, while the land routes to Arabia were impractical and dangerous, those choosing to go by sea had to endure indignities at the hands of the Portuguese, who issued passports with pictures of Mary and Jesus stamped on them (Lowe, Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh, p. 206). Significance Just as Muntakhab al-tawārīkh makes a unique contribution to the historiography of the reign of Akbar by providing first-person insights into his character, so it provides an important perspective on ChristianMuslim relations. The historiography of the Jesuit encounter with Muslim ʿulamāʾ in royally sponsored debates is dominated by the writings of the Jesuits. Their initial perspective is one of triumphal optimism, interpreting Akbar’s interest in the Gospel and Christian doctrine as a step to conversion. However, they eventually conclude that, rather than considering adopting Christianity, he was intent on leaving Islam to establish a new religion. From Badāʾūnī’s perspective, Akbar’s invitation to the Jesuit priests and his willingness to learn from them was another in a series of inquiries in his quest for truth and was, at the same time, another piece of evidence demonstrating his departure from the truth of Islam. While the Jesuits’ and Badāʾūnī’s interpretations of the event differ, the details are remarkably consistent. Both record that the priests were asked to instruct Prince Murād in the teachings of Christianity, even to the detail of beginning the lesson by invoking the name of Jesus (Hoyland, Commentary, pp. 52-3). Both also record that the priests strongly denounced and condemned Muḥammad in public debate (Hoyland, Commentary, p. 39). Both Badāʾūnī’s account and that of the Jesuits mention the proposal of an ordeal by fire. The first suggests that the priests were too cowardly to take up the challenge, whereas the second has them declining the proposal on the basis that such trials were historically inconclusive and that they were contrary to the law of Christ. An alternative view was presented by Abū l-Faz̤l in his chronicle: he insisted that the proposal had been made by the Christians, and that it had been the Muslim ʿulamāʾ who had behaved like cowards (Maclagan, Jesuits, pp. 31-2). One possible explanation for the confusion is that it was Akbar himself who desired the trial to go ahead. His love of public spectacles is well attested, but



badāʾūnī

157

more profoundly, he endeavoured to learn about other religions through participation – kissing the Bible, practising fire worship according to Zoroastrian rites, wearing certain clothes on particular days (Moin, ‘Islam and the millennium’, pp. 227-34). Badāʾūnī’s mention of the increasing prominence of Christian religious images accords well with Monserrate’s account of Akbar’s reverence for images of Jesus and Mary (Hoyland, Commentary, pp. 58-60). Badāʾūnī’s description of the pope lends itself to the interpretation that he recognised in him Akbar’s attempt to attain a similar position of religious and political authority. He noted that the pope was able to change religious ordinances as he deemed viable, similar to the way that Akbar had declared himself to be the chief mujtahid. Likewise, the pope’s evident authority over the kings of Europe paralleled Akbar’s ambition to be recognised as the caliph for the new millennium. The political conflicts between the Christian Portuguese and the Muslims of Gujarat and the Deccan are addressed in a much more cursory manner in the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh than in Muslim histories and poems composed in southern India. This reflects the limited engagement that Mughal military forces had with the Portuguese. However, with Akbar’s increasing expansion having reached Gujarat, Badāʾūnī does make a brief mention of one conflict. His reference to the offence caused by images of Jesus and Mary on passports made mandatory for journeys to Arabia by sea points to another arena where increasing Portuguese naval power was having an impact on the Mughal Empire. Mention should also be made of references to Christ and Christianity in another work by Badāʾūnī, Najāt al-Rashīd. This book, examining vices and extolling their avoidance, reflects the religious discussions of the ʿibādat-khāna in both form and content, inviting the inference that it was to some extent inspired by those disputes. This lends significance to a comment in the section on ‘The rise and fall of a community’: ‘Due to proliferation, change and errors in copying the Gospel (Injīl), the religion and law of Jesus, may peace be upon him, became corrupt and lost its essence’ (Moin, ‘Challenging the Mughal emperor’, p. 391-4) This is a common motif in Muslim polemics against the Christian scriptures and had been part of the debates between the ʿulamāʾ and the priests. Other portions of this text deal with millennial expectations such as the return of Jesus to guide the community of Muslims. However, these references are more related to Muslim doctrines of eschatology than to Christian dogma.

158

badāʾūnī

Publications MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – MS. Elliot 248 (1730; 509 fols) MS New Haven, Yale University Library – Persian MSS 48 (1783; second half of the work only) MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – MS. Elliot 349 (1804) MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – MS. Fraser 159 (date unknown) A list of 12 other MSS of the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh in other libraries can be found in D.N. Marshall, Mughals in India. A bibliographic survey, vol. 1: Manuscripts, London, 1967, pp. 17-18. Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, Lucknow, 1857 Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, ed. K. Ahmad, A. ʿAlī and W.N. Lees, 3 vols, Calcutta, 1865-9 H.H. Wilson, ‘Account of the religious innovations attempted by Akbar’, in R. Rost (ed.), Works by the late Horace Hayman Wilson, vol. 2, London, 1862, pp. 379-400 (selections) E. Rehatsek, The Emperor Akbar’s repudiation of Esllám and profession of his own religion, called the ‘Tovoyyd elahy Akbar Shahy’ or ‘Akbar Shah’s divine monotheism’, Bombay, 1866 (selections) H. Blochmann, The Ain i Akbari by Abul Fazl ʿAllami, Calcutta, 1873, vol. 1, pp. 168-209 (selections regarding Badāʾūnī’s view of Akbar’s religion) H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson (eds and trans), ‘Muntakhabu-t tawáríkh, or, Táríkh-i Badáúní of Mullá ‘Abdu-l Kádir Badáúní’, in H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson (eds), The history of India as told by its own historians. The Muhammadan period, London, 1873, vol. 5, pp. 477-549 (selections) Badāʾūnī, Tarjumah-yi Muntakhabuttavārīkh, trans. Iḥtishāmuddīn, Lucknow, 1874 (Urdu trans.) W.H. Lowe (trans.), Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh by Abd-ul-Qádir bin Malúk Sháh known as al-Badáóní, vol. 2, Calcutta, 1884 (repr. Patna, 1973; Karachi, 1978; Osnabrück, 1983; New Delhi, 1990) (English trans. of section 2) G.S.A. Ranking (trans.), Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh by Abd-ul-Qádir bin Malúk Sháh known as al-Badáóní, vol. 1, Calcutta, 1898 (Patna, 1973; Karachi, 1978; Osnabrück, 1983; New Delhi, 1990) (English trans. of section 1) W. Haig (trans.), Muntakhab-ut-tawáríkh by Abd-ul-Qádir bin Malúk Sháh known as al-Badáóní, vol. 3, 1925 (Patna, 1973; Karachi, 1978; Osnabrück, 1983; New Delhi, 1990) (English trans. of section 3)



badāʾūnī

159

Badāʾūnī, Muntakhabuttavārīkh, trans. Maḥmūd Aḥmad Fārūqī, Lahore, 1962 (Urdu trans.) Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, 3 vols, Osnabrück, 1983 Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, ed. A. ‘Alī, Tehran, 2000 Badāʾūnī, Muntakhabuttavārīkh, trans. ‘Alīm Ashraf Khān, New Delhi, 2008 (Urdu trans.) Studies C. Sengupta, ‘Badauni as a source for interpreting the history of Akbar’s period. A critical review of the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh and Najat-ur-Rashid’, International Journal of Research in Economics and Social Sciences 6 (2016) 51-7 C. Lefèvre, art. ‘Dīn-i ilāhī’, EI3 A. Kuczkiewicz-Fraś, ‘Akbar the Great (1542-1605) and Christianity. Between religion and politics’, Orientalia Christiana Cracoviensia 3 (2011) 75-89 A.A. Moin, ‘Islam and the millennium. Sacred kingship and popular imagination in early modern India and Iran’, Ann Arbor MI, 2010 (PhD Diss. University of Michigan) Moin, ‘Challenging the Mughal emperor’ M.R. Pirbhai, Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian context, Leiden, 2009 A. Anooshahr, ‘Mughal historians and the memory of the Islamic conquest of India’, Indian Economic Social History Review 43 (2006) 275-300 M.A. Ali, ‘Muslims’ perception of Judaism and Christianity in medieval India’, Modern Asian Studies 33 (1999) 243-55 J.F. Richards, The Mughal Empire (The new Cambridge history of India, vol. 1.5), Cambridge, 1993 A.S.B. Ansari, art. ‘Badāʾūnī, ʿAbd al-Qāder’, in Encyclopaedia Iranica Abbas, Abdul Qadir Badauni S.A.A. Rizvi, Religious and intellectual historiography of Muslims in Akbar’s reign, New Delhi, 1976 H. Mukhia, Historians and historiography during the reign of Akbar, New Delhi, 1976 Hardy, ‘Badāʾūnī’ Ambashthya, ‘Evaluation of Badāyūnī and his Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh’ E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the great Mogul, London, 1932 Storey, Persian literature

160

badāʾūnī

J.S. Hoyland (trans.), The commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J. on his journey to the court of Akbar, with notes by S.N. Banerjee, London, 1922 T.W. Haig, art. ‘Badāʾūnī’, in EI1 H. Blochmann, ‘Notes on the Arabic and Persian editions of the Bibliotheca Indica, No. 1: Badaoni and the religious views of Emperor Akbar’, Proceedings of the Asiatic society of Bengal (1869) 80-91 Blochmann, ‘Badáoní and his works’ R.B. Singh, Tārīkh-i Badāʾūn, Bareilly, 1868 Alan Guenther

Thomas Roe Date of Birth 1581 Place of Birth Low Leyton, Essex Date of Death 6 November 1644 Place of Death Woodford Manor, Essex

Biography

The exact date of Thomas Roe’s birth is not known, but since he was baptised at St Lawrence Jewry, London, on 8 March 1581, he must have been born earlier that year. His father, Robert (1550-87) was a haberdasher and landowner. Roe (or Rowe) studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1593, and left four years later to enrol in the Middle Temple without taking a degree. The Inns of Court were London’s centres of learning where, as well as studying, law students wrote poetry and plays. Roe counted rising literati as friends, including John Donne and Ben Jonson (Brown, Itinerant ambassador, p. 6). He wrote some verse, and may have visited France. By 1601, he had inherited money and property from his father’s estate and, probably due to his stepfather’s influence with Queen Elizabeth I, became an esquire of the Queen’s body. When James I acceded, Roe remained at court serving Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth, becoming Elizabeth’s life-long confidant. They corresponded regularly. A knighthood followed in 1603. In March 1605, Roe travelled with the Earl of Nottingham to Spain to ratify the Treaty of London. By 1607, he was a member of the Royal Council of Virginia and of the Council of the Virginia Company, in which he had invested. In 1610, when he was probably already a gentleman of the privy chamber, encouraged by Walter Raleigh (then in the Tower), by Prince Henry and the Earl of Salisbury, Roe led an expedition to Guiana to try to locate the legendary El-Dorado or another source of gold and to establish settlements. After leaving settlers on the north bank of the Amazon (they later cultivated tobacco), Roe sailed 300 miles up the river and explored the coast and the Wiapoco River, but he became convinced that El-Dorado was a myth (Brown, Itinerant ambassador, p. 15). He returned to England without having found gold but retained his commercial involvement in the settlements, which lasted until 1619. He helped equip several expeditions,

162

thomas roe

in which some sources say he participated personally (Brown, Itinerant ambassador, pp. 18, 20, n. 56). In 1613, he went with King James’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to Heidelberg, where her husband was Elector Palatine. In 1614, the Catholic scholar Thomas Wright of the English College, Douay, published the proceedings of a theological exchange between himself and Roe in 1613. Later, Roe became a friend of Archbishop William Laud. During 1614, he won a seat in the Commons, where he served on several committees. That year he also saw active duty in the Netherlands, possibly not for the first time, given his knowledge of military matters. In October 1614, he accepted an appointment by the East India Company as England’s first fully accredited ambassador to Mughal India. His journal (first partly published by Samuel Purchas in Purchas his pilgrimes, 1625, then in full by W. Foster in 1899) is an important account of Jahāngīr’s reign and of England’s emerging interest and presence in India. Despite Jahāngīr’s expressed personal dislike of James, and issues surrounding the exchange of gifts (which Roe saw as bribery), Roe and Jahāngīr developed a good rapport. Ironically, he had to use Portuguese as translators, even though they were opposed to trade privileges for England. Although he did not leave India with the formal trade treaty he had wanted, he did obtain a letter that promised free and unmolested access to ports and markets. His Islamic references suggest some openness to the possibility that goodness is not a Christian monopoly. Roe began his return journey in February 1619. The East India Company was pleased with his achievements: they gave him a bonus, and retained his services as a consultant (Brown, Itinerant ambassador, pp. 100-1). The 1619 map based on his data remained the basis of all British maps of India for a century. After gaining a seat in the new parliament, Roe again accepted a diplomatic appointment in 1621, this time as the sixth English ambassador to Istanbul. Funded by the Levant Company, this post was becoming increasingly prestigious. Recent ambassadors had been considered ‘mediocre’, so Roe, with his experience in India and ‘knowledge of Middle Eastern trade’, was seen as the ideal choice (Brown, Itinerant ambassador, p. 119). This time, he was accompanied by his wife, whom he had married shortly before leaving for India. Although his term in Istanbul corresponded with a turbulent period, with one sultan’s murder, another’s abdication (which he chronicles, see A true and faithful relation) and the succession of a minor, he was able to expand consular representation, negotiate better protection of English ships, help negotiate



thomas roe

163

an Ottoman-Polish peace treaty, and collect antiquities for English aristocrats. Befriending the Ecumenical Patriarch, Cyril Lukaris, he obtained precious Greek manuscripts, some dating from the 10th century, which he donated to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. He was also instrumental in preventing a plot to replace Lukaris with a pro-Rome appointee. He added to the fourth edition of Richard Knolles’s popular Generall historie of the Turks (1631), and, believing that Turkey was in decline, he pioneered the ‘sick old man’ metaphor that became widely used in the 19th century (Negotiations, pp. 22, 126). After seven years, the Roes returned to London. Roe may have expected a peerage, though this was not forthcoming, possibly due to his tendency to speak his mind, especially on reaching a compromise between king and parliament. However, diplomatic missions continued, now all on the European continent. He died on 6 November 1644 at the country estate he had bought at Woodford, Essex, and was buried on 8 November in St Mary’s Church. Serving both in Muslim India and at the Ottoman court, Roe qualifies as the earliest English diplomat whose career took him into Muslim spheres for substantial periods of time.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Thomas Roe, A true and faithfull relation, presented to his Maiestie and the prince, of what hath lately happened in Constantinople, concerning the death of Sultan Osman, and the setting vp of Mustafa his vncle Together with other memorable occurrents worthy of obseruation, London, 1622 Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, or Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625, Glasgow, 1905-7, vol. 4, pp. 310-468 (extracts from Roe’s Journal) The negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, in his embassy to the Ottoman Porte, from . . . 1621 to 1628, ed. S. Richardson, London, 1740 A. Woods and P. Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses, London, 1817, vol 3, pp. 110-15 The embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619, ed. W. Foster, London, 1889 Secondary M. Strachan, art. ‘Roe, Sir Thomas (1581-1644)’, ODNB C.P. Mitchell, Sir Thomas Roe and the Mughal Empire, Karachi, 2000 M. Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, 1581-1644. A life, Salisbury, 1989 M.J. Brown, Itinerant ambassador. The life of Sir Thomas Roe, London, 1970 (references include state papers) S. Lane-Poole, art. ‘Roe, Thomas’, DNB

164

thomas roe

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations The Journal of Sir Thomas Roe Date 1619 Original Language English Description The Journal of Sir Thomas Roe (its title in full is The journal of Sir Thomas Roe: Embassador from His Majesty King James the First of England to Ichan Guire, the mighty Emperor of India, commonly call’d the Great Mogul: containing an account of his voyage to that country and his observations there) was not published in full until the 19th century. Samuel Purchas included about a third of it in Purchas his pilgrimes (1625), together with some letters, but the complete text and additional letters were not published until William Foster edited these for the Hakluyt Society in 1899. This is a two-volume work with continuous pagination. Following Foster’s introduction (pp. ii-lxviii), the text runs to p. 461 (vol. 1 ends at p. 271) ending with the entry for 22 January 1618, followed by letters and other documents (pp. 462-568) and an index. Letters include two to Archbishop George Abbott (pp. 122-4, 308-19). The first reference to Islam is found in the entry for 21 July 1615. Roe’s ship anchored off Molalia Island (Mwali) in the Comoro Archipelago near Mozambique, where a sultan entertained him. He notes that the sultan was descended from Muḥammad (that he was a sharīf; Foster, Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, p. 20; the references that follow are to this edition unless otherwise stated), and that he was nevertheless happy to drink the wine provided by the English. Roe reached Surat, then the port of entry for the English in India, on 18 September 1615 (p. 41). Protracted negotiations with Mughal officials followed about clearing customs, meeting the governor and proceeding to Ajmer, where Jahāngīr was residing. Convinced that preserving the dignity of his status as ambassador directly reflected on King James’s honour, he was not prepared to allow his luggage or person to be searched or to go to meet the governor, but insisted that the governor should come to him (p. 54). Eventually provided with an escort as promised, Roe set out with his staff (including a chaplain, John Hall) for Ajmer on 1 November (p. 86). On the way, he was already informing the East India Company that those who had seen the gifts sent for the emperor thought them inferior, especially the lining of the coach (p. 97). Reaching Ajmer



thomas roe

165

Illustration 3. The Emperor Jahāngīr showing preference to a Sufi over Ottoman and English ambassadors (painting by Bichitr, who includes himself in the foreground)

166

thomas roe

on 21 December (p. 105), he was at first too ill to see the emperor, but on 10 January 1616 he was able to present his commission. Roe remained at Ajmer until the following November, when Jahāngīr left with his army. Roe followed, distinguishing his tent from others by flying the flag of St George, while his servants wore distinctive livery. Stays were made at Mandu and Ahmadabad, from where Roe began his return to England in September 1618, setting sail from Surat on 17 February 1619. Throughout his time at court Roe continued negotiations for a commercial treaty with the Mughal Empire, while at the same time on behalf of the East India Company he promoted trade with Persia. He decided to return home when he came to realise that entering into a permanent treaty was not how the Mughals did business (p. 469). Roe’s letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot (Foster inserts these and other letters into the text as entries for the date they were written between Journal entries), brother of the East India Company’s deputy-director, contain references to Muslims. Some describe the Jesuits’ efforts at evangelism and some relate to the exploits of the eccentric former royal jester, Thomas Coryat (d. 1617), who had walked to India from Aleppo. At Ajmer, Roe describes efforts by Jesuits to convince Jahāngīr that a crucifix had survived a fire, so he should embrace Christianity. Jahāngīr replied that, if they threw the crucifix and also a picture of Christ into a fire and neither burned, he would become a Christian, while Jahāngīr’s son, Prince Khurram, a strict Muslim, added that if they burnt the Jesuits should become Muslims, though the priests declined, saying that God works miracles ‘according to his own counsel’ (p. 317). Roe tells Archbishop Abbot that he knows of no Christian who had been ‘orderly converted’ but only a few who had been baptised in return for money and were maintained by the Jesuits despite all their ‘bragg and labour’ (p. 316). Roe describes Jahāngīr, who inherited his father Akbar’s interest in religious discourse, as an ‘Atheist’ who has ‘no religion’, meaning that he was not committed exclusively to one particular religion (p. 314). He witnesses that Jahāngīr observes Muslim rituals but claims ‘to be a greater prophet than Mahomet’ (p. 314). From Muslim supplicants he demands prostration, although he allows Christians to follow their own form of salutation (p. 296) and he always speaks respectfully of Jesus. Discussing the laws of Moses, Jesus and Muḥammad with Roe, Jahāngīr said that he welcomed all in his realm and did not meddle with their faith (p. 382).



thomas roe

167

Almost everything Roe writes about Jahāngīr is positive. He is patient when listening to suits, and chooses officials for their merit not their status or birth (p. 109). He is cheerful and gentle in conversation, and treats Roe with much respect (p. 112). He is so generous towards the poor that his charity puts Christians to shame: ‘That we having the true vine should bring forth Crabbes, and a bastard stock grapes’. Significance The historical value of Roe’s Journal is widely acknowledged. Prasāda refers to it as ‘still one of the best books on Moghul India’ (Early English travellers, p. 128). While relatively few references contain implications for ChristianMuslim relations, much of the discussion discloses an attitude of incipient Orientalism. Though pre-colonial, Roe’s ‘interaction, attitudes, and spatial dynamics with Indians’ represents an ‘anterior’ moment ‘of a colonial spatiality that emerges in the late eighteenth century’ (Nayar, ‘Colonial proxemics’, p. 29). This included the way he situated or spaced himself vis-à-vis objects and people. He tried to stand as close to Jahāngīr as he could, saying that, as ambassador of a great prince, protocols that applied to others did not apply to him. It also included the way he mapped India and redesigned his house, anticipating the role carto­ graphy would play in British India (setting boundaries and reimagining space), and the way colonial officials in India established privileged spatial zones for themselves. Brown points out that, by wearing the clothes he did while complaining about the weather, Roe ‘was a true forerunner of those Englishmen who, in other centuries, would ignore all the sensible limitations suggested by climate and environment and pursue doggedly the kind of activities they had known in the comfortable and patrician atmosphere of rural England’ (Brown, Itinerant ambassador, p. 76). In fact, Cohn goes as far as to say that the practice of maintaining Englishness in India began with Roe (Cohn, Colonialism and its forms, p. 112. Some scholars suggest that Roe’s depictions of sumptuous feasts, and of Mughal jewellery and opulence begin to set the stage for how the English would see India as a place for adventure (see Barbour, Before Orientalism; Telscher, India inscribed; Singh, Colonial narratives). Tantalising glimpses of Jahāngīr’s hidden harem (p. 321) and the role of his wife, Nūr Jahān (pp. 281, 363-4), who for Roe was full of ‘corruption and venality’, represent a ‘strident symbol of otherness’ (Bhattacharya, Reading the splendid body, pp. 40-1). Roe thus exhibits a ‘colonial imagination’

168

thomas roe

(Singh, Colonial narratives, p. 28). He also anticipates another Orientalist trope of perceiving Indians as effeminate (p. 357), and thus in need of the protection of British rule. However, other scholars question whether Roe should be understood solely ‘through the production of difference between India and England, between “East” and “West” ’. Thus, Pinch points out that Roe and Jahāngīr were men who could understand each other by translating what were ‘primarily differences of detail, not substance’ in ways they could both understand (Pinch, ‘Same differences’, p. 404). Sapra discusses how context affected what Roe wrote: he was more critical of India when writing to King James, telling him that Jahāngīr was too proud, and less negative when writing to the Company, saying that India was a ‘civilized trading partner’ (Sapra, Limits of Orientalism, p. 63). What may seem to be racist stereotyping of Orientals as corrupt, argues Sapra, is ‘not colour and race’ but ‘class consciousness’. Thus, Roe was equally ‘scathing of Jahāngīr’s subordinates and of the English factors’, complaining about their drinking and quarrelling, as he did about that of the seamen (Sapra, Limits of Orientalism, p. 69). Roe’s Journal was intended to guide future diplomatic and Company representatives in India. Through Purchas’s version and early translations into Dutch, German and French, it was widely read, and it probably proved useful to many Europeans in India, not only to the English. Although it contains disparaging comments, it also describes much that Roe admired. Thus, most of his references to Islam are descriptive rather than pejorative. He calls Muslim priests, prophets, witches and soothsayers the ‘devil’s imposters’ (p. 312), but his admiration for Jahāngīr’s generosity towards the poor leads him to chastise Christian rulers for not doing the same. His description of Jahāngīr as ‘a man that lives humanely with men’ (Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, p. 145) arguably shows that his attitude was shifting away from a total rejection of Islam to at least partial acceptance, perhaps based on a recognition of common humanity and of some shared values that transcend religious ­particularities. Publications MS London, BL – Additional 19227 and 6115 (1616) Samuel Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625, vol. 1, pp. 535-91 (about one-third of the original text; repr. Glasgow, 1905-7, vol. 4, 310-468); STC 20509 (digitalised version of the 1625 edition available through EEBO)



thomas roe

169

Thomas Roe, Journael van de reysen ghedaen door den Ed. Heer en Ridder Sr. Thomas Roe, ambassadeur van sijn Conincklijcke Maejesteyt van Groot-Brittanje, afgevaerdicht naer Oostindien aen den Grooten Mogol, ende andere ghewesten in Indien, Amsterdam, 1656 (Dutch trans.); Res/4 It.sing. 226 g (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) M. Thévenot, ‘Memoires de Thommas Rhoe’, in Relations de divers voyages curieux, Paris, 1663-72, vol. 1, pp. 1-80 (French trans.) J. Churchill, Voyage to the East Indies., Collection of voyages, London, 1704, vol. 1, pp. 767-813 (on p. 813 there is a list of presents sent to Roe for the Mughal court ‘to show what curiosities were acceptable in India’) J.J. Schwabe, Allgemeine Historie der Reisen, Leipzig, 1747, vol. 11, pp. 1-61 (German trans.) J. Pinkerton, A general collection of the best and most interesting voyages and travels in all parts of the world; many of which are now first translated into English. Digested on a new plan, London, 1811, vol. 8, pp. 1-56 J.T. Wheeler, A short history of India and of the frontier states of Afghanistan, Nepal, and Burma, London, 1889 (summarises the journal in ch. 5, pp. 141-61) W. Foster (ed.), The embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619, as narrated in his journal and correspondence, London, 1899 (repr. London, 1967, Farnham, 2010) Studies P.K. Nayar, Colonial voices. The discourses of empire, Oxford, 2012, pp. 12-54 R. Sapra, The limits of Orientalism. Seventeenth-century representations of India, Newark DE, 2011 P.K. Nayar, ‘Object protocols. The “materials” of early English encounters with India’, in D. Johanyak and W.S.H. Lim (eds), The English Renaissance, Orientalism, and the idea of Asia, New York, 2010, 185-202 R. Barbour, Before Orientalism. London’s theatre of the East, 1576-1626, Cambridge, 2009 M. Ogborn, Indian ink script and print in the making of the English East India Company, Chicago IL, 2007, pp. 27-66 P.K. Nayar, ‘Colonial proxemics. The embassy of Sir Thomas Roe’, Studies in Travel Writing 6 (2002) 29-53

170

thomas roe

N. Bhattacharya, Reading the splendid body. Gender and consumerism in eighteenth-century British writing on India, Newark DE, 1998 W. Pinch, ‘Same difference in India and Europe’, History and Theory 38 (1999) 389-407 B.S. Cohn, Colonialism and its forms of knowledge. The British in India, Princeton NJ, 1996 J.G. Singh, Colonial narratives – cultural dialogues. ‘Discoveries’ of India in the language of colonialism, London, 1996 K. Teltscher, India inscribed. European and British writing on India, 1600-1800, Delhi, 1995 Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe Brown, Itinerant ambassador R. Prasāda, Early English travellers in India. A study in the travel literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods with particular reference to India, Delhi, 19802, pp. 128-63 Clinton Bennett

Francisco Rodrigues Silveira Date of Birth About 1558 Place of Birth Lamego, Portugal Date of Death Between 1635 and 1640 Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Francisco Rodrigues Silveira was born in Lamego, northern Portugal. He must have been born around 1558, as he mentions that he was 27 years old when he went into service in India in 1585. We have no information about his childhood or youth, but he claims that on arrival in India he was already a seasoned soldier, which leads to the assumption that he had earlier military experience elsewhere. As Silveira states that he was in Goa in January 1586, it can also be assumed that he travelled with the armada of Fernão de Mendonça Furtado, which left Lisbon in April 1585. According to what he says in Reformação, he took part in several armadas and campaigns in Portuguese India from 1586 to 1598, before returning to Lisbon in April 1598 in the armada of Afonso de Noronha. In their introduction to Reformação, Barreto and Winius provide some details of Silveira’s life after his return to Portugal, based on source material and information contained in another of his works, Discursos sobre a Reformação da justiça da Comarca da Beira e antre Douro e Minho. According to this, Silveira returned home to Lamego to be a farmer. After 1600, he travelled on nine different occasions to Madrid, and to Lisbon on five, to present the work Reformação da milícia. In 1604, he was appointed notary (tabelião do judicial) in Lamego, succeeding his wife’s grandfather. In 1606, the Crown granted him a yearly payment of 50,000 réis on account of his good service in India and his work on Reformação da milícia. The document also reveals a plan to nominate him as feitor in Ormuz, which, however, never came to fruition due to his poor health and a bad leg. In an introductory letter to his Discursos, addressed to Philip IV in 1630, Silveira refers again to his health problems, mentioning many months of illness and the loss of both legs. A legal conflict landed him in prison in Lamego in 1610, and again in 1619, at Oporto. He was found guilty in 1626, despite his claims of innocence. During his incarceration in Oporto, he met a Dutchman who

172

francisco rodrigues silveira

told him about preparations for a great fleet that would sail to Asia. On the basis of this information, he wrote Discurso sobre o progresso dos Gelandeses entrados novamente na Índia, addressing the perils that the Dutch presence in the eastern seas would present to the Portuguese. He was married twice, in 1604 to Maria de Sequeira, and in 1610 to Maria Saraiva da Gama. Barreto puts the date of Silveira’s death at between 1635 and 1640, primarily based on the fact that Silveira dedicates, in his own hand, one of his manuscripts (MS London) to Princess Margarida, Duchess of Mântua, who only became regent of Portugal after 1634.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Francisco Rodrigues Silveira, Reformação da milícia e governo do estado da Índia oriental, ed. B.N. Teensma et al., Lisbon, 1996 Secondary Silveira, Reformação da milícia, ‘Introduction’, pp. 9-58 B.N. Teensma, Some 17th century Portuguese comments on the Dutch in Asia, (s.l.), 1992 L.F. Barreto, ‘Em torno da Reformação da milícia e governo do estado da Índia oriental, de Francisco Rodrigues Silveira’, in Estudos Orientais 3 (1992) 23-47 L.F. Barreto, ‘A Reformação da milícia e governo do estado da Índia oriental de Francisco Rodrigues Silveira. Fundamentos para uma edição crítica’, Lisbon, 1991 (PhD Diss., University of Lisbon) G.D. Winius, The black legend of Portuguese India, New Delhi, 1985 G.D. Winius, ‘Francisco Rodrigues Silveira. The forgotten soldado prático’, in L. de Albuquerque and I. Guerreiro (eds), Actas do II Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa, Lisbon, 1985, 773-86

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Reformação da milícia e governo do Estado da Índia oriental, ‘Reformation of the military and government of the Estado da Índia’ Date Approximately 1621-2 Original Language Portuguese



francisco rodrigues silveira

173

Description The text of the Reformação, according to what Silveira himself says, is the sixth version of his manuscript, and would have been completed in the years 1622-3. Silveira also mentions that he had begun composing the work in 1590. In 1877, Costa Lobo published some sections of it under the title Memórias de um soldado da Índia. Lobo created his own thematic organisation and, in G.D. Winius’ words, ‘shattered the text into a thousand fragments’, reflecting a view held by many other critics. The Reformação da milícia has only been printed in full in the 1996 edition by B.N. Teensma. This comprises 241 pages, plus an additional 19 pages containing the Discurso. Throughout his work, Silveira expresses a vision of Christian duty that equates service to the king with service to the country and to God. Within this context, he formulates his relationship to Muslims: they are the foe, the military enemy, whose actions, mainly at sea, contest the natural Portuguese supremacy, which is thwarted only by the lack of any military order or system among the Portuguese ranks. He illustrates this concept through many examples of military actions carried out against Muslims, who are described as pirates, corsairs and thieves, with the Malabar corsair Cunhale being the main menace. Silveira defends the idea of creating a grand Portuguese base (in Ceylon or Sumatra) where a Christian population could thrive, his key argument being that the presence of mixed populations in the Portuguese settlements does a disservice to the defence of the state and crown. He also criticises the existence of settlements living under foreign law, religion and customs, as in the Gulf of Bengal and China (Macau). Rather than indicating opposition to the Muslims, this advice was intended to caution against Dutch penetration into the region. Reformação da milícia is the best known of Francisco Rodrigues Silveira’s three works, the others being Discursos sobre a reformação da justiça and Discurso sobre o progresso, though apart from being bound together in the two volumes of the London manuscript, there is no explicit relationship between them. Thematically they differ, with Discursos sobre a reformação da justiça dealing with judicial reform in the northern districts of Portugal and Discurso sobre o progresso forming a later addition to Reformação; it addresses the subject of the Portuguese East Indies, and the Dutch presence as one of the most visible threats. These three works all propose measures for optimising the administration of the crown, but nonetheless differ in the subjects addressed.

174

francisco rodrigues silveira

Silveira was a contemporary of Diogo do Couto, the author of Soldado prático, a dialogue between an old soldier and a former governor of Portuguese India, and of Décadas da Ásia IV-XII, chronicles of the Portuguese presence in the east. Both authors, in their respective ways, address the malfunctions of the administration in India, Couto focusing on higher officialdom and its administrative vices and Silveira proposing a full reform of the military system. Significance Silveira typically positions Christians and Muslims as enemies who are struggling for control over Asia. His perspective equates service to God with service to the crown, which harks back to quasi-medieval beliefs in the duty of the Christian nation to spread Catholicism and destroy enemies of the faith. As suggestions and advice to the crown, Silveira’s work does not appear to have had any significant influence on the historical development of Christian-Muslim relations, as his ideas were not reinforced by other authors. Publications MS London, BL – Additional Manuscripts: Portuguese, 25:412, vol. 1, fols 1-182 (1630-4; a later copy of Silveira’s original) Francisco Rodrigues Silveira, Memórias de um soldado da Índia compiladas de um manuscripto Portuguez do Museu Británnico, ed. A. de S.S. Costa Lobo, Lisbon, 1877 (repr. Lisbon, 1987) Francisco Rodrigues Silveira, Reformação da milícia e governo do estado da Índia oriental, ed. B.N. Teensma, Lisbon, 1996 Studies Silveira, Reformação da milícia, ‘Introduction’, pp. 9-58 L.F. Barreto, ‘Francisco Rodrigues Silveira. Novos dados biográficos’, in A universidade e os descobrimentos, Lisbon, 1993, 405-26 Teensma, Some 17th century Portuguese comments Barreto, ‘Em torno da Reformação da milícia’ Barreto, ‘A Reformação da milícia’ Winius, Black legend of Portuguese India Winius, ‘Francisco Rodrigues Silveira. The forgotten soldado prático’ Tiago Castro

Wollebrant Geleynssen de Jongh Date of Birth 8 January 1594 Place of Birth Alkmaar Date of Death 28 January 1674 Place of Death Alkmaar

Biography

Presumably descended from a middle-class family, and orphaned as a teenager, Geleynssen de Jongh entered the service of the VOC at the age of 16 by procurement of his legal guardian. During the following four decades, he would pursue a professional career in the VOC’s various settlements in Asia. Beginning his career as an assistant on the island of Banda (Moluccas), where he spent seven years (1611-18), he was promoted to the rank of merchant and served in this capacity at the company’s settlement at Halmahera (an island off Sulawesi/Celebes) for three years (1618-21). In 1622, he returned to the Netherlands, but re-entered the service of the VOC in 1623 with the rank of senior merchant. Geleynssen de Jongh was sent to India, his main area of activity, where he worked first in Burhanpur (Gujarat), and was then promoted to director of the VOC settlement in Bharuch in 1624, a post he held for eight years. Relieved from this post in late 1631, he left India for Europe, but resumed employment with the VOC in 1634. Returning to Asia as commander of one of the biannual fleets from the Netherlands to the Dutch headquarters at Batavia (present-day Jakarta), he spent his first months there as a member of the legal committee (Raad van Justitie) before being assigned as a senior merchant to the settlement at Matapura (Kalimantan/Borneo) for eight months (1635-6). Subsequently, he was sent to his former domain in Gujarat, where he served as deputy leader at the factory in Surat and director of the company branch in Agra from 1635 to 1640. A further promotion followed in 1641, when Geleynssen de Jongh was appointed as director of the Dutch settlements in Iran, a post he held until 1643, and for a second term from 1645 to 1647. Upon his final return to Batavia, in appreciation of his service to the company’s trade, he was appointed as an extraordinary member of the India Council (the highest body of officials after the governor general) and commander of the annual fleet sailing from

176

wollebrant geleynssen de jongh

Asia to the Netherlands in 1648. In addition, the directors of the VOC awarded him a golden chain of merit. Geleynssen de Jongh settled in his hometown as a landowner and local dignitary, holding the office of head of the municipal orphanage several times. His private archive, containing a number of personal and commercial documents, which contains valuable source material for both the trade politics of the VOC and social and economic life in 17th-century South Asia, is currently held as a separate collection at the Dutch national archive at The Hague. Geleynssen de Jongh came to Asia not as a researcher or colonial administrator, but as an employee of a trading company whose field of activity comprised creating an appropriate framework for the VOC’s commercial activities by negotiating the legal basis with the local authorities, and safeguarding the company’s commercial affairs. His obligations, however, brought him into daily contact with officials, merchants and brokers from various social strata and ethnic and religious groups, a task that required considerable social skill and learning capability. Not least, he was required to develop a keen sense of observation and a proper understanding of cultural codes and rules of proper behaviour, which made him an astute analyst of Indian society.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. de Hullu, Beschrijving van een verzameling stukken afkomstig van Wollebrand Geleynssen de Jongh, (s.l.), 1912 J. de Hullu, Supplement-inventaris van de verzameling stukken afkomstig van Wollebrand Geleynssen de Jongh, (s.l.), 1913 Secondary H.W. van Santen, VOC-Dienaar in India. Geleynssen de Jongh in het land van den Groot-Mogol, Franeker, 2001 H.E. van Gelder, ‘Wollebrandt Geleynsz. de Jongh. “De Alkmaarder Wees” ’, Oud Holland 33 (1915) 26-40a C.P. Bruinvis, ‘Jongh (Wollebrandt Geleijnsz. de)’, in Nieuw Nederlandsch biographisch woordenboek, vol. 2. Leiden, 1912, 640-2 A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol. 9, Haarlem, 1860, 203-4



wollebrant geleynssen de jongh

177

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations De remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh, ‘Remonstrative letter (or apology) by W. Geleynssen de Jongh’ De remonstrantie Date 1625-6 Original Language Dutch Description Geleynssen de Jongh’s De remonstrantie, which in manuscript comprises 66 folios, is part of a collection of country studies including descriptions of various regions on India, and a short description of Iran. The document may have served as a sort of ‘fact book’ for administrative use and for the instruction of newly arrived employees. Remarks in the text indicate that the manuscript was written in around 1625-6, shortly after Geleynssen de Jongh arrived in Bharuch. The first part of the text is dedicated to a description of the most prominent trading places in Gujarat, their situation, commodities, population and administration. Integrated into this description are remarks about general conditions in the Mughal state, and relations between court, governors, local officials and subalterns. This approach, with its attempt to offer a deeper analysis of the function and stability of statehood in India, was adapted several years later in Joannes de Laet’s De imperio Magni Mogolis. The second part of the text deals with the various religious and e­ thnic groups of Gujarat with whom the VOC interacted either as business partners or as competitors, in particular the Muslims (whom Geleynssen de Jongh refers to as ‘Moors’ or ‘Mahometans’) (fols 29v-39r; Caland, De remonstrantie, pp. 55-72), the Hindus and Jains (fols 39v-55v; Caland, De remonstrantie, pp. 73-104) and the ‘Persians’ (Zoroastrians) (fols 56r-66v; Caland, De remonstrantie, pp. 104-25). In the tradition of humanist ethnography, the description is focused less on religious matters than on an account of manners and customs. Therefore, in the section on Muslims, Geleynssen de Jongh makes practically no reference to Islamic theology except some scanty notes on religious purity laws and the ban on alcohol, and only discusses religious controversies between Muslims and Christians in terms of Muslim attitudes towards Calvinists and Catholics. A fortiori he describes

178

wollebrant geleynssen de jongh

the architecture of mosques and the social status of the ʿulamāʾ, and similarly, his description of Muslim manners concentrates on dwellings, clothing, cooking and table manners (the last compared with those of the Turks), and public and domestic customs from weddings to funerals. In general, Muslims are regarded and defined as a religious group, although Geleynssen de Jongh identifies ‘Mughals’, Pashtuns (‘Pathans’) and Gujaratis as the three dominant Muslim ethnicities, and gives a short discussion of their respective social status and their attitudes towards their co-religionists. Significance Intended for internal use, Geleynssen de Jongh’s work remained unpublished, and therefore unnoticed, for almost three centuries. Documented for the first time in 1912 in de Hullu’s inventory of Geleynssen’s private archive, it was brought to a wider audience when it was presented at an Oriental Studies conference in Leiden in 1921, and was subsequently edited in 1929 by the Indologist Willem Caland. When writing his description of Gujarat, Geleynssen de Jongh followed the obligation of employees of the VOC to present their superiors with a detailed description of the political, social, economic and cultural conditions in the particular region where they had established a new settlement. The description was supposed not only to convey up-to-date information to the VOC directors in Batavia and Amsterdam, but also to serve as proof that the assigned task was being properly executed. For this reason, Caland chose the title Remonstrantie (meaning ‘Remonstrative letter’ or ‘Apology’) for his edition, in analogy to the famous description of India by Francisco Pelsaert. With regard to its structure and the value of the information it provides, Geleynssen de Jongh’s description of the political and economic conditions, as well as of the various religious and ethnic groups of Gujarat can be regarded as comparable to that of Pelsaert. Aware that his recipients were already well-informed about Asian countries and societies, and would expect positive data, he did not need to contextualise his description within a broader theoretical framework, and was free of the obligation to respect the sensitivities of a general public or the stipulations of a censorship board. In his description, Geleynssen de Jongh relied on his own observations and experiences as a merchant and diplomat who was compelled to negotiate and cooperate with the local authorities and his business partners on a professional level: ‘the merchant with the merchant, the



wollebrant geleynssen de jongh

179

warrior with his kin, and the grandees with each other’ (Caland, De remonstrantie, p. 59). This led to a relatively unbiased attitude towards local cultures. Although Geleynssen de Jongh did regard the Mughal system of administration as a typical outcome of Asian despotism, he abstained from any general depreciation of Indian government (in contrast, for example, to François Bernier’s depiction of the Mughal state, Un libertin dans l’Inde moghole. Les voyages de François Bernier (1656-1669), ed. F. Tinguely, A. Paschoud and Ch.-A. Chamay, Paris: Chandeigne, 2008). Similarly, his tendency, encouraged by an early modern humanist education, to regard the customs of foreign civilisations as naturally given, enabled him to provide a positive description of other religions and their rituals that refrained from any polemical tone. This objectivity, paired with a keen perceptiveness, explains the particular attraction for Indologists and religious scholars of those sections of his manuscript that deal with Jainism, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. However, in his description of the Islamic administration in India, too, and the religious and social life of Muslims in Gujarat, Geleynssen de Jongh’s description still stands out as an exceptionally informative and insightful document on Islamicate culture in pre-colonial South Asia. Publications MS The Hague, Nationaal Archief – 1.10.30 Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, no. 28 (1625-6) P.A. Leupe, Reis van den opperkoopman Wollebrandt Geleynsz. de Jongh van Soeratte naar Agra 1636 1637, Amsterdam, 1882 W. Caland (ed.), De remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh, The Hague, 1929 P.G. Kreyenbroek, ‘De remonstrantie’, in N.K. Firby (ed.), European travellers and their perceptions of Zoroastrians in the 17th and 18th centuries, Berlin, 1988, 183-93 (pp. 104-25 of Caland’s edition) Studies H.W. van Santen, De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620-1660, Meppel, 1982 A. Bos Radwan, The Dutch in Western India 1601-1632. A study of mutual accommodation, Calcutta, 1978 Roman Siebertz

François Pelsaert Francisco Pelsaert Date of Birth Approximately 1595 Place of Birth In or near Antwerp Date of Death 1630 Place of Death Batavia (present-day Jakarta)

Biography

François Pelsaert was born into an impoverished middle-class family in Antwerp and as an adult probably sought a career in Holland. In 1616, he sailed with a fleet of the VOC to the Indies, arriving in Banten in April 1617. He was later appointed to the Western sections of the VOC and travelled to Surat, from where he was posted as an assistant to the office in Agra in early 1621. His main duty was to sell the spices sent from Indonesia to clients from the ruling elite, and to buy indigo that was to be sent to Europe, as well as textiles that were to be sold in the VOC settlements in Indonesia. Pelsaert was known as a good official, well versed in the necessary languages (Urdu and some Persian), and with political abilities. In Surat, the Christian tradesmen, i.e. Dutch, French, British, Danes and a large group of Armenians, were a relatively tight-knit group, living more or less as one ‘Christian nation’, with a network of spouses of Syrian and Caucasian origin. Pelsaert and the few Dutch officials with him in Agra had a more individual lifestyle. Pelsaert was known as a womaniser, who once invited one of the wives of a high Mughal official (one of the umarāʾ, or ammerauwen as he wrote in Dutch) to his house at night. The woman found a bottle and drank from it, thinking it was Spanish wine, althouh it in fact contained extract of cloves. She died on the spot from this strong oil, and was buried in the office garden. In 1636, nine years after Pelsaert had left Agra, VOC officials were still afraid that the case would become known and damage their relations with Agra society (Kolff and van Santen, Geschriften, pp. 32-3). In 1627 or early 1628, Pelsaert, then a senior merchant, wrote his Chronicle of Mughal India and Remonstrantie, a description of the current state of the region and prospects for trade. After travelling briefly to his home country, he returned to the Indies in 1628. As commander of a part of the fleet that drifted to Australia, his company was the first to see



françois pelsaert

181

some islands off the coast of Australia. His ship, the Batavia, ran aground in the Houtman Abrolhos, off the west coast of Australia, where the crew mutinied and many died before rescue arrived from Batavia through Pelsaert. In Batavia, he was granted a high position, but died shortly after his arrival in mid-1630. His book describing his experiences in Australia became very famous, especially for Australian history. In Indian history, Pelsaert is the most prominent of three Dutch authors writing on Mughal India between 1620 and 1630, the other two being Pieter van den Broecke and Wollebrant Geleynssen de Jongh. In 1662, they were followed by Dircq van Adrichem, with his account of a trip to the Mughal court of Aurangzeb in Agra.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary D.H.A. Kolff and H.W. van Santen (eds), De geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indië, 1627. Kroniek en Remonstrantie, The Hague, 1979 Secondary Om Prakash, ‘The Mughal Empire and the Dutch East Indies Company in the seventeenth century’, in E. Locher-Scholten and P. Rietbergen (eds), Hof en handel. Aziatische vorsten en de VOC 1620-1720, Leiden, 2004, 183-200 J. Gommans, L. Bes, and G. Kruijtzer, Dutch sources on South Asia c. 1600-1825, vol. 1. Bibliography and archival guide to the National Archives at The Hague, New Delhi, 2001, p. 165 L. Bes, Dutch sources on South Asia c.1600-1825, vol. 2: Archival guide to the repositories in the Netherlands other than the National Archives, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 147, 154 H.W. van Santen, ‘De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620-1660’, Leiden, 1982 (PhD Diss. Leiden University), pp. 42-50, 135-60 D.F. Lach and E.J. Van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. 3. A century of advance, no. 1, Trade, missions, literature, Chicago MI, 1993 D.F. Lach and E.J. Van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. 3. A century of advance, no. 2, South Asia, Chicago MI, 1998, pp. 616-28, 662 H. Drake-Brockmann (ed.), Voyage to disaster, the life of Francisco Pelsaert, covering his Indian report to the Dutch East India Company and the wreck of the ship Batavia in 1629 off the coast of Western Australia together with the full text of his journals, concerning the rescue voyages, the mutiny on the Abrolhos islands and the subsequent trials of the mutineers, trans. from the Dutch and Old Dutch by E.D. Drok, London, 1964, pp. 169-71 H. Terpstra, De Nederlanders in Voor-Indië, Amsterdam, 1947

182

françois pelsaert

A.J. Bernet Kempers (eds), Journaal van Dircq van Adrichem’s Hofreis naar den Groot-Mogol Aurangzēb, 1662, The Hague, 1941 W.H. Moreland, ‘John de Laet and Francisco Pelsartt’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1923) 85-7

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Remonstrantie, ‘Account of India and a history of the Mughal Empire’ Date Probably 1627 Original Language Dutch Description The Dutch in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) considered the Dutch settlements in Arabia, Persia and India to be western settlements (Westerkwartieren) of the expanded VOC. In the mid-1620s, the central office in Batavia requested that reports be sent from these regions. Within this context, Pelsaert wrote his Remonstrantie, a report from Agra as the central location of the Mughal Empire. The work has no true title and there is no title page in the manuscript. Remonstrantie has been taken from a similar work by Geleynssen de Jongh. In manuscript form, the text consists of 66 pages, and opens with chapters on the town of Agra and its commerce, with particular chapters dedicated to the cultivation of and trade in indigo. The connections with Gujarat and the Dutch settlement in Surat are described, along with many statistics. Special attention is given to the regions north and west of Agra, as well as Burhanpur. The sale of imported spices from Indonesia is addressed, and of agricultural products of the Mughal Empire itself. Chapter 12 is dedicated to ‘The manner of life’, covering many topics such as the position of slaves, handicrafts (including the work of carpet makers, masons and blacksmiths), the way houses are built, and the lifestyle of women, poor and rich. Chapter 13 devotes seven pages to ‘Religious superstitions’, while the shorter Chapter 15 deals with Muslim marriages in Agra. In this work, Pelsaert frequently resorts to relatively strong derogatory language, so that the first English translators, writing in 1925 for a general public that included Hindu and Muslim readers in British India, felt it necessary to add a note of apology, asking their readers to ‘make the necessary allowances for the vigorous language in which Pelsaert’s Protestant zeal is occasionally manifested in this section and the next’ (Moreland and Geyl, Jahangir’s India, p. 69).



françois pelsaert

183

Pelsaert asserts that his readers in the VOC office will be familiar with the basic facts about Muḥammad and the Muslim religion, and that he will therefore concentrate on the local peculiarities of India. The first are the pīrs (Sufi leaders), who are part of Indian Islam ‘as the papists have saints’. They are venerated not through images but through ‘silly mundane fables’. Examples given are Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Sijzī of Ajmer, to whom Akbar and his wife make a pilgrimage to pray for a child, and Badīʿ al-Dīn Shāh Madār, whose grave is located in Makanpur. This section on saints also contains a report of the debate over Khusraw, the eldest son of the Mughal Emperor Jahāngīr. Khusraw was considered by some to be a great saint after he was murdered in 1622 at the instigation of his younger brother, who would later succeed his father as emperor, taking the title Shāh Jahān. The governor of Agra, Qāsim Khān, eventually ordered Khusraw’s tomb to be destroyed because the emperor disapproved of the cult emerging around his dead son. Pelsaert mentions that places of pilgrimage attract mendicants and petty traders, as well as providing an opportunity for secluded women to see and meet men. He also describes some of the popular beliefs held by Muslims about the miracles of Muḥammad, which he considers absurdities. The second half of his description of local Indian Islam deals with the great holy days of Islam: the celebration of the end of the month of Ramadan and the festival of sacrifice and commemoration of the deaths of the sons of ʿAlī. Pelsaert here stresses the distinctions, and animosity, between Muslims when he states that Persians, Uzbeks and Tartar Muslims commemorate the killings of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, while Turks, Arabs and Hindustanis do not participate in this practice, each group calling the other kāfir (infidel). He contrasts the Sunnī Muslims and the Rawāfiḍ Muslims (Shīʿa Muslims who ‘reject’ the legitimacy of the first three caliphs). In the chapter on Hindu religion, Pelsaert stresses that Hindus ‘are more punctilious and much stricter than the Muslims in their ceremonies’, giving the practice of bathing in the early morning as a key example. He also lists the sources of livelihood for Hindus and Muslims: jewellers are most often Hindus, as are also book-keepers, but dyeing and weaving are businesses dominated by Muslims. In the chapter on Muslim marriages, there is a long explanation of how marriages are arranged, namely mainly through marriage-brokers. Wedding ceremonies, music, eating, gifts and presents are described, again with the emphasis that Hindustani practice is different from Mughal customs.

184

françois pelsaert

Significance The Dutch, like other foreign nationals, were different from Muslims and Hindus in India. Pelsaert, like his Dutch colleagues Pieter van den Broecke and Wollebrant Geleynssen de Jongh, did not really participate in this society, but instead he offers an outsider’s view of Muslim customs and practices. Although Pelsaert does not demonstrate any particular Protestant or Reformed bias in his other writings, the section on Islam is spiced with derogatory remarks about the Muslim religion (as well as about ‘papists’ or Roman Catholics). In this, he differs greatly from Geleynssen de Jongh, who writes explicitly in his Remonstrantie about Gujarat from the same period (1625) that religious differences are not important, but rather ‘the merchant has contact with other merchants, like the soldiers among themselves, the high authorities, all people with their equals’ (W. Caland [ed.], De Remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh, The Hague, 1929). Geleynssen states that people in Gujarat showed curiosity about the history and situation in his country, as well as that of the British. He even quotes a Persian saying, ‘cūn khūb karded khūb biyābed’, as ‘someone who does good will also experience goodness by other people. There is only one God who remunerates everyone according to one’s deeds’ (Caland, Remonstrantie, p. 59). A similar sentiment can be found in the few remarks about religion in Pieter van den Broecke’s lengthy journal, Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe, which tells of his journeys in Indonesia, Arabia (Aden, Mokha, Hormuz) and Surat. In one of his more explicitly religious comments, van den Broecke reports that the Emperor Akbar used to say ‘“Who were Abraham, Moses and our Prophet Muḥammad? They were just human beings.” He did not specifically love one of them, but knew that there was one God and only in Him he believed’ (W.P. Coolhaas [ed.], Pieter van den Broecke in Azië, 2 vols, The Hague, 1962-3, vol. 2, p. 385). Pelsaert is more outspoken and negative in his description of the Muslim (as well as the Hindu) religion, but still writes about communities from the perspective of an outside observer. In a society that was a conglomeration of different communities, and where the VOC officials were just temporary guests, it was sensible not to express more specific, outspoken judgements about any religion. As an outsider, Pelsaert makes a significant contribution in describing Islam as it was lived by his Muslim contemporaries in northern India. Though his comments are dismissive and derogatory, his descriptions of Sufi practices around the graves of pīrs, particularly the emergent cult around the murdered Khusraw, which was promptly quenched by



françois pelsaert

185

political forces, supply an informative record of the practice of Muslims. Likewise, his detailed descriptions of Muḥarram observances and popular beliefs about miracles associated with Muḥammad provide further insight into Islam as it was lived during the period. Publications MS The Hague, National Archives – VOC 4906, Remonstrantie, 66 pages (not dated but probably 11 February 1627; signed on the title page by Pelsaert) Melchisedech de Thévenot (trans.), Relations de divers voyages cvrieux. Qvi n’ont point este’ pvbliees, ov qvi ont este’ tradvites d’Haclvyt, de Purchas, & d’autres voyageurs anglois, hollandois, portugais, allemands, espagnols ; et de qvelqves Persans, Arabes, et avtres auteurs orientaux, Paris, 1663-6, vol. 2, pp. 1-19 (French trans.) W.H. Moreland and P. Geyl (ed. and trans.), Jahangir’s India. The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, Cambridge, 1925 (English trans.) J.S. Hoyland (trans.) and S.N. Banerjee (annot.), The empire of the Great Mogol. A translation of De Laet’s ‘Description of India and fragment of Indian history’, Bombay, 1928 (English trans.) B. Narain and S.R. Sharma (ed. and trans.), A contemporary Dutch chronicle of Mughal India, Calcutta, 1957 (English trans.) D.H.A. Kolff and H.W. van Santen (eds), De geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indië, 1627. Kroniek en Remonstrantie, The Hague, 1979, pp. 243-335 Studies K. Sharma, ‘A visit to the Mughal harem. Lives of royal women’, South Asia. Journal of South Asian Studies 52 (2009) 155-69 W.M. Floor, The Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Dewel-Sind (Pakistan) in the 17th and 18th centuries (based on original Dutch records), Karachi, 1994 A.D. Gupta, ‘Indian merchants and the western Indian Ocean. The early seventeenth century’, Modern Asian Studies 19 (1985) 481-99 D.H.A. Kolff, ‘La nation chrétienne à Surat au début du XVIIe siècle’, in R. Goutalier (ed.), La femme dans les sociétés coloniales, Aix-enProvence, 1984, 7-16 Om Prakash, The Dutch factories in India. A collection of Dutch East India Company documents pertaining to India, 1617-1627, 2 vols, New Delhi, 1984-2007

186

françois pelsaert

A.J. Bernet-Kempers, ‘Een Hollandsch gezantschap naar den GrootMogol in 1662’, De Gids (1936) 591-8 W.H. Moreland, ‘Pieter van den Broeke at Surat (1620-29)’, Journal of Indian History 10 (1931) 2-6 H. Terpstra, De opkomst der westerkwartieren van de VOC. Suratte, Arabië en Perzië, The Hague, 1918 Karel Steenbrink

Pieter van den Broecke Date of Birth 25 February 1585 Place of Birth Antwerp Date of Death 1 December 1640 Place of Death At sea, off Malacca

Biography

Born in Antwerp the son of a sugar refiner who left the city due to the effects of the Spanish blockade and finally settled in Amsterdam, Pieter van den Broecke was apprenticed at the age of 17 to a local trading company. Between 1605 and 1612, he undertook several trips to what are known today as Cape Verde, Ghana and ‘Angola’ (Loango, at the estuary of the River Congo) on behalf of a number of trading companies. His obviously successful business operations in Africa seem to have persuaded his superiors, who were also involved in trade with Asia, to offer him work with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1613. His first assignment in Asia was a voyage to Yemen and Gujarat (India) in 1614-15, which was intended not only for trade, but first and foremost to negotiate with the local authorities for the opening of trading factories in these countries. After fulfilling this task, van den Broecke was supposed to take over the administration of the new factory in Surat (Gujarat) in 1617. However, his vessels were shipwrecked on the coast of Gujarat, and he found himself compelled to return with his men to the VOC headquarters by crossing the Indian subcontinent and boarding a ship on the Coromandel coast – a mission that he carried out successfully, and during which he also gained additional diplomatic experience through dealing with authorities in the Deccan sultanates. After a less fortunate involvement in the conquest of Jakatra (now Jakarta), during the course of which he spent several months as a prisoner of the local ruler, he was assigned by Governor General Jan Pieterszoon Coen in 1620 as director of the factory in Surat, which was to become one of the VOC’s most important trading posts in India. Van den Broecke held this position for eight years, diligently representing the interests of the VOC not only towards the Mughal authorities but also against Coen’s aggressive politics in Asia. When finally relieved of his position in 1628, he was given command

188

pieter van den broecke

of the annual Dutch fleet from Asia to the Netherlands and awarded a golden chain by the VOC directors. Van den Broecke settled as a private person in Haarlem (Netherlands), where he was employed as an advisor by the scholar and author Joannes de Laet on the latter’s description of the Mughal state. Striving to return to the service of the VOC, he published an edition of his diaries in 1634, which indeed brought about the desired result. However, van den Broecke’s hopes of obtaining a top-level position in the company administration were not fulfilled. According to the rather scarce information available on the later stages of his life, he was employed as an inspector for the Dutch settlements on the Arabian Sea. He died at sea in late 1640, while on his way to a new command in the conquest of the Portuguese stronghold of Malacca. Pieter van den Broecke belonged to the first generation of Dutch merchants and officials who helped to establish the military and commercial Dutch presence in Asia during the first decades of the 17th century. His contribution was significant, particularly with regard to the creation of VOC settlements in Arabia and Gujarat. Innately a merchant, van den Broecke found himself cast as a diplomat when he came to Asia, but he had few problems navigating this new role. Having obtained a traditional humanist education, he was on the one hand convinced of the superiority of Christianity and Western culture over Asian civilisations, while on the other adhering to the humanist idea that, with reason and good arguments, agreement could be reached even with members of other cultural groups. Indeed, van den Broecke prided himself on his negotiating skills, to which he owed the speedy advancement of his career, and to his credit he could point to successful negotiations with Ottoman and Indian dignitaries, which even in critical situations yielded favourable outcomes for the VOC. The flip side of such confidence in his eloquence was a lack of leadership and assertiveness, which may have hampered his later career. As a proficient businessman, he also possessed the ability to put aside cultural prejudices when the commercial interests of the company were at stake, and a capacity for learning and adapting to foreign cultures. In this respect, he considered that the best way of maintaining the interests of the VOC was by associating himself with local dignitaries on an equal social footing.



pieter van den broecke

189

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary W.H. Moreland, ‘Pieter van den Broeke at Surat (1620-1629)’, Journal of Indian History 10 (1931) 235-50; 11 (1932) 1-16 K. Ratelband (ed.), Reizen naar West-Afrika van Pieter van den Broecke, 1605-1614, The Hague, 1950 C.F. Beckingham, ‘Dutch travellers in Arabia in the seventeenth century’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1951) 68-81, 170-81 W.P. Coolhaas (ed.), Pieter van den Broecke in Azië, The Hague, 1962-3 J.D. la Fleur (ed.), Pieter van den Broecke’s journal of voyages to Cape Verde, Guinea and Angola (1605-1612), London, 2000 Secondary S.H. van Borselen (ed.), Leven en werken van Pieter van den Broecke (1585-1640), (s.l.), 1979 F.E. Mulert, art. ‘Broecke (Pieter van den)’, in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, Leiden, 1921, vol. 5, 52-3 A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, Haarlem, 1855, vol. 2, 1342-5 P. Weeda, Pieter van den Broek in Azië, of Geschiedenis der togten en verrigtin gen van dezen Nederlandschen Regulus, Amsterdam, 1845

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe, ‘Short history, or journal-like notes’ Date 1634 Original Language Dutch Description The first edition of van den Broecke’s Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe (its title in full is Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe . . . beneffens de beschrijvingh en afbeeldingh van verscheyden steden, op de custe van Indien, Persien, Arabien, en aen’t Roode Meyr), published in 1634, comprises 163 pages in an oblong quarto, including a number of illustrations, with a portrait of van den Broecke, a dedication to the directors of the VOC and two poems preceding the text. The Historiael itself is an abridgment and revision of the diary van den Broecke kept between 1605 and 1630, from his first African voyage until his final return to the Netherlands. Intended as a way of facilitating his return to the service of the company, the book became a monument

190

pieter van den broecke

to its author, highlighting his merits for company trade in the regions adjacent to the Arabian Sea (to which the poem attached to his portrait on the frontispiece directly refers). Therefore, van den Broecke strove to present his own personality and actions in the best light and to conceal the blunders and failures that are openly recounted in his diary notes. Aimed at the VOC directors as prospective future employers, while at the same time relying on their permission to convey in-house information about company business to a broader public, he furthermore was keen to omit or soften any critical comments about Dutch conduct in Asia, or derogatory remarks about foreign rulers or nations. In consequence, the Historiael comprises only a fraction of the information noted down in van den Broecke’s diary (for the section on Africa, about 20 per cent, and a similar proportion of his notes on Yemen and India). With regard to content, the Historiael maintains the structure of the diary. Van den Broecke tells of his travels, negotiations with local rulers and dignitaries, and business operations. In his narrative, the description of his diplomatic missions to Yemen, Gujarat and the Deccan kingdoms, and of his management of the factory in Surat, where he de facto acted as the diplomatic agent of the VOC, make up a large part of the text. Here, van den Broecke gives a detailed account of the diplomatic ceremonial in various places, the attitude of his hosts towards non-Muslim powers, the resolution of cultural misunderstandings (as exemplified by his description of a faux pas he made at the pasha’s court in Sana’a), and his own perception of his function as a representative of a Christian nation in a Muslim environment. The style preserves the character of a sober business report, purposing to document how its author managed his affairs well and according to the orders he had been given. One aspect of his description is its marked factuality: he gives detailed information about the geographical location and topography of the places visited, and precise data on the amount and value of their trading goods. In the case of Cape Verde and Loango, he includes two treatises on their respective cultural anthropology, doubtless based on personal observations. On the other hand, van den Broecke combines his obligation to report factually with a delight in narrating that in places gives his account an anecdotal character. Furthermore, on many points he follows the conventions of travel literature, appealing to his readers, for example, by describing curious animals as exotic mirabilia, depicting African religions as devil worshipping, or adding to information taken from his diary the statement that he saw it with his



pieter van den broecke

191

own eyes. As he does this, he shows quite remarkable objectivity towards Islam and Islamic culture, presenting it without any condemnation as the natural condition of the regions in which he travelled. Not least, his detailed description of the wonders and riches of the East serves the propaganda character of the text, not only in promoting its author but also in the glorification of Dutch trade and conquest in Asia. Significance Among contemporary readers, van den Broecke’s work met with remarkable success. It was reprinted in Amsterdam in the same year as its first publication, while further extended editions were published in 1645, 1648, the 1660s and 1717. The significance of this work, not only as a geographical and anthropological description, but also in documenting early modern Christian-Muslim relations and diplomatic practice, is furthermore testified by a French translation at the beginning of the 18th century, and a final Dutch edition in 1885. Several reasons can be posited for the book’s appeal to its readers, not least the popularity of travelogues as a genre and the opportunity it offered to gain first-hand insight into Dutch trade in Africa and Asia, the first stage of Dutch colonialism in Southeast Asia, and VOC politics and business – all this presented by an author who was also a gifted story-teller. Furthermore, aside from Pieter de Marees’ Beschryvinge [. . .] van het gout koninckrijk van Gunea (1602) and Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Itinerario (1595), van den Broecke’s account was one of the first publications that offered up-todate and reliable information on political and economic conditions in Africa and Asia, and especially on regions such as Ghana, Yemen and the kingdoms of the Deccan, on which no other published descriptions were available at that time (and for the decades to follow). Aside from the information on anthropological and economic matters, van den Broecke gave his audience valuable insights into the political practice of African royal courts, the provincial administration of Ottoman Yemen, and the political and administrative structures in the Muslim states in South Asia. In this respect especially, his contribution to early modern knowledge of Africa and Asia cannot be overestimated. As a source for the culture, economy and political situations in those regions, the Historiael has lost its importance since the publication of van den Broecke’s original diaries and other documents relating to his personality from the mid-20th century onwards. The various editions of his book, however, still provide a helpful object of study for the ­dissemination

192

pieter van den broecke

of knowledge on the Islamic world and the working methods of 17th-century publishers. Publications MS Leiden, University Library – BPL 952 (1630-2) Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe, van al’t geen merck-waerdigh voorgevallen is, in de langhdurige Reysen, soo nae Cabo Verde, Angola [etc.] als insonderheyd van Oost-Indien, Haarlem, 1634; Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam OTM O 60-1015 (digitalised version available through Google Books) Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe, van al’t geen merck-waerdigh voorgevallen is, in de langhdurige Reysen, soo nae Cabo Verde, Angola [etc.] als insonderheyd van Oost-Indien, Amsterdam, 1634 Pieter van den Broecke, ‘Historische ende iournaelsche aenteyckeningh, Van ’t gene Pieter van den Broecke op sijne Reysen, soo van Cabo Verde, Angola, Guinea, en Oost-Indien (aenmercens waerdigh) voorghevallen is &c.’, in I. Commelin (ed.), Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie . . ., Amsterdam, 1645, vol. 2 Pieter van den Broecke, Wonderlijcke historische ende journaelsche aenteyckeningh, van ‘t ghene Pieter van den Broecke, op sijne Reysen soo van Cabo Verde, Angola, Gunea, Oost-Indien . . ., Amsterdam, 1648 Oost-Indische voyagien door dien Begin en Voortgangh, van de Vereenighde Nederlandtsche geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie: vervatende de voornaamste reysen, by de inwoonderen der selver Provintien derwaerts ghedaen: eerste Deel: Daer in begrepen zijn 16 Voyagien, ed. G. de Veer, Amsterdam, 1648 Pieter van den Broecke, Vijf verscheyde Journalen van Peter van den Broeck, gehouden op zijne Reysen, na Cabo-Verde, Angola en Guinea, doch voornamentlijck na Oost-Indien . . ., Amsterdam, 1660 Pieter van den Broecke, ‘Voiage de Pierre van den Broeck au Cap Vert, à Angola, et aux Indes Orientales . . .’, in R.A. Constantin de Renneville (ed.), Recueil des voyages qui ont servi a l’établissement et aus proges de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales, vol. 3, Amsterdam, 1702-6 (French trans.); Koninklijke Bibliotheek KW 1149 G 1 [-5] (digitalised version available through Google Books)



pieter van den broecke

193

Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historiaal ende journaalse aenteikeninge, van al’t geen merk-waardig voorgevallen is, in de langdurige reizen, zo na Cabo Verde, Angola, etc. als van Oost-Indien / door Pieter van den Broecke, Leeuwarden, 1717 Pieter van den Broecke, ‘Togten van Pieter van den Broeck, na verscheiden Gewesten, aan de kust van Afrika’, ‘Togt van Pieter van den Broeck, na de Oostindiën’, in Nederlandsche reizen, tot bevordering van den koophandel, na de meest afgelegene gewesten des aardkloots.: Doormengd met vreemde lotgevallen, en menigvuldige gevaaren, die de Nederlandsche reizigers hebben doorgestaan, Amsterdam, 1885 Studies C. Levecq, ‘Early Dutch travel writing on West Africa’, Dutch Crossing. Journal of Low Countries Studies 37 (2013) 220-39 R. Siebertz, ‘Ein Kaufmann als Diplomat. Pieter van den Broecke als Vertreter der Niederländischen Ostindiengesellschaft in Arabien und Indien 1615-1629’, in R. Kauz, G. Rota and J.P. Niederkorn (eds), Diplomatisches Zeremoniell in Europa und im Mittleren Osten in der frühen Neuzeit, Vienna, 2009, 323-48 J. Vansina, ‘On Ravenstein’s edition of Battell’s adventures in Angola and Loango’, History of Africa 34 (2007) 321-47 C.G. Brouwer, ‘A stockless anchor and an unsaddled horse. Ottoman letters addressed to the Dutch in Yemen, first quarter of the 17th century’, in C.G. Brouwer, Dutch-Yemeni encounters. Activities of the United East India Company (VOC) in South Arabian waters since 1616, Amsterdam, 1999, 151-221 C.G. Brouwer, ‘Non-Western shipping movements in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 17th century, according to the records of the Dutch East India Company (Part 1)’, Die Welt des Islams, New Series 31 (1991) 105-67 C.G. Brouwer, ‘Rediscovered after more than three centuries. Pieter van den Broecke’s original Resolutieboeck concerning Dutch trade in north-west India, Persia and Southern Arabia, 1620-1625’, Manuscripts of the Middle East 1 (1986) 61-77 C.G. Brouwer, ‘Under the watchful eye of Mimī Bin ʿAbd Allāh. The voyage of the Dutch merchant Pieter van den Broecke to the court of Djaʿfar Bāshā in Sanaʿa, 1616’, in Itinerario. International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction 9 (1985) 42-72

194

pieter van den broecke

N. MacLeod, De Oost-Indische compagnie als zeemogendheid in Azië, 2 vols, Rijswijk, 1927 H. Terpstra, De opkomst der Westerkwartieren van de Oost-Indische Compagnie: (Suratte, Arabië, Perzië), The Hague, 1918 J.E. Heeres, ‘Pieter van den Broecke en zijne journalen’, in Geschiedkundige opstellen, uitgegeven ter ere van Dr. H.C. Rogge, Leiden, 1902 P.A. Leupe, ‘Pieter van den Broecke voor Jakatra 1619’, De Nederlandsche spectator, The Hague, 1877 Roman Siebertz

Joannes de Laet Date of Birth 1581 Place of Birth Antwerp Date of Death 9 December 1649 Place of Death Leiden

Biography

Joannes (or Johannes) de Laet was born in 1581, the son of a cloth merchant who had left Antwerp due to the effects of Spanish rule and moved to Amsterdam. From 1597 to 1602, he studied in Leiden, where the eminent philologist and historian Joseph Scaliger was among his teachers. After an unsuccessful attempt to launch a career as a merchant in England, he returned to the Netherlands in 1607 and settled in Leiden, only leaving to represent the city as an elder-delegate at the Synod of Dort in 1618-19, and for two trips to England in 1638 and 1641. As a trained merchant and a scholar, de Laet was vigorously active in both the commercial and the scientific affairs of the Dutch Republic. The most notable of his commercial activities was his participation in the establishment of the Dutch West-India Company (Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie, GWIC), which he also served as one of the directors from 1621 until his death. As a scholar, he proved to be a polymath with a wide range of interests; his publications include theological treatises, editions of Pliny’s Historia naturalis and Vitruvius’s De architectura, along with a great number of geographical and ethnological works, among which his descriptions of South America are particularly noteworthy. For the ‘Republics’ series of the Leiden publishing house Elzevier, he contributed the volumes on Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Persia and India, i.e. the Mughal Empire. As both a scientist and author, de Laet benefitted from an excellent network of associates and informers, especially in the Netherlands and England, who could provide him with source material. Albeit an orthodox Calvinist, he was strongly influenced by his teacher Scaliger and his interest in universal history and ancient philology, which he combined with a demand for systematic and empirical research. This almost modern attitude distinguished de Laet from a large number of contemporary scholars, the most prominent being Hugo Grotius, with whom he held a

196

joannes de laet

fierce public dispute on the origin of the American peoples, in which he criticised Grotius’ theories based on humanist traditions. In this respect, as a scholar de Laet stood on the threshold of the move from classical humanism to modern science.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Joannes de Laet, Commentarii de Pelagianis et semi-Pelagianis ex veterum Patrum Senegitis, Harderwijk, 1617 Joannes de Laet, Nieuwe wereldt ofte beschrijvinghe van West-Indiën, Leiden, 1625 Joannes de Laet, Notae ad dissertationem Hugonis Grotii de origine gentium Americanarum et observationes aliquot ad meliorem indaginerin difficillimae illius quaestionis, Amsterdam, 1643 Joannes de Laet, Responsio ad dissertationem secundum H. Grotii de origine gentium Americanarum, Amsterdam, 1644 Joannes de Laet, Historie ofte jaerlijkx Verhaal van de verrigtingen der geoctr. West-Indische Compagnie, sedert haer begin tot het cinde van het jaar 1636, begrepen in XIII boecken, met kopere platen vercierd, Leiden, 1644 Secondary J.A.F. Bekkers, Correspondence of John Morris with Johannes de Laet (1634-1649), Assen, 1970

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations De imperio Magni Mogolis sive India vera commentarius: E variis auctoribus congestus, ‘On the empire of the Great Mughal, or a commentary on the true India: compiled from various authorities’ Date 1631 Original Language Latin Description De imperio Magni Mogolis sive India vera commentarius, de Laet’s description of India, was published as part of the ‘Republics’ series edited by the Leiden publishing house Elzevier. Common to all volumes of the series was the duodecimo format and the deliberately simple Latin of the text, in order to secure a wide distribution. There are two editions of the book, the first in 1631 with 299 pages, and the second, improved and



joannes de laet

197

updated, with 285 pages in the same year (Smith, ‘Treasure of Akbar’, pp. 231-3). The contents of the book can be divided into two parts. The first is a geographical and political description, covering the topography and administrative division of the Mughal state first edition (pp. 1-91), its physical geography (pp. 92-106), ethnography (pp. 107-26), administration (pp. 127-30), a description of the court at Agra (pp. 131-40), currencies and weights (pp. 141-2), an assessment of the emperor’s personal wealth (opulentia principis, pp. 142-50), and the military organisation of the empire (pp. 151-6). The second part is dedicated to the history of the Mughal state, consisting in two genealogies of the Muslim rulers of India taken from Garcia de Orto’s Aromatum historia (pp. 157-61) and an unnamed work by Pedro Teixeira (pp. 162-5), and an outline of Mughal history (Fragmentum) that covers the period from Humāyūn’s defeat by Shir Shāh and his subsequent flight from India in 1540 to the death of Jahāngīr in 1627 (pp. 172-291). The text ends with a conclusion (pp. 292-9) that discusses the general structure of the Mughal state and the factors that might endanger its stability. When drafting his book, de Laet relied to a large extent on his network of informers in elevated positions, both in the Netherlands and in England, who could provide him with source material not accessible to the public. Thus, in contrast to his description of Iran, which is merely an uncritical compilation of older descriptions already available in print, he was able to present his readers with precise and up-to-date information on the political and economic situation in northern India. As his sources he names Pedro Teixeira, Samuel Purchas, Thomas Roe, the first English ambassador to the Mughal court, and his chaplain Edward Terry, the Portuguese Jesuit Bento de Góis, and Pieter van den Broecke, the first director of the Dutch factory and one of the greatest experts on India of the time, who presumably made available to him the manuscript of the Fragmentum (most likely written by Francisco Pelsaert) and may have provided him with oral information. William Finch, Nicholas Withington and Richard Hawkins have been identified by Hoyland and Bannerjee as further sources (Hoyland and Bannerjee, Empire of the Great Mogol, pp. 5-6). As he explains in the preface to his work, the wealth of information he had at his disposal made it possible for de Laet to rely not on accounts of ancient authors (in fact, only on the first page of his description is there a reference to Pliny), but rather on the testimony of contemporary observers. In addition, de Laet displays his own philological efforts by trying to render the names of Indian persons and places as faithfully as possible, even though he followed the spelling of his sources

198

joannes de laet

in most cases. Likewise, he adapted erroneous etymologies from these sources (such as the notion that Nouruz had originally meant ‘nine days’). Since the focus of de Laet’s account lies in the description of the administrative system and political geography, very little attention is given to the culture and religion of the country’s inhabitants. Therefore, the Mughal state is considered less a Muslim state than a country inhabited mainly by non-Muslims, on which the ruling dynasty depended both economically and militarily. In this respect, de Laet’s description refrains from any religious polemic and betrays an almost modern objectivity, even though its author himself was a devout and at times even confrontational Calvinist. A distinctively critical depiction of Mughal rule is given in the conclusion, in which the tyrannical and therefore unstable character of the state is pointed out. In this case, however, the account is again strongly influenced by de Laet’s sources, whose authors, like de Laet himself, were strongly influenced by the still dominant paradigm of Oriental despotism in their description of Asian states and societies. In this respect, and despite its innovative approach, de Laet’s account still follows the humanist tradition. Significance At the time of its publication, de Laet’s description of India was the first systematic and, in spite of its brevity, the most orderly exploratory description of an Islamic state available in print. The wealth of new and reliable information it offered and its methodical approach to its subject made it an instant publishing success, as is indicated by the two successive editions. The reliability of its information (which was indebted to the quality of its sources) meant that de Laet’s work was quoted as a reference on Muslim India into the 20th century. With this account, de Laet effectively implemented the new scientific concepts represented by him and his teacher Scaliger, such as the universalist perspective, the incorporation of non-Western source material, and the preference for empirical data over traditional learning. He set a new standard for writing about non-Western cultures, making his book a model to follow for other authors working on a description of Islamicate states, with Engelbert Kaempfer’s Amoenitates exoticae as the most notable example. One result of the focus on ‘hard facts’ in his account was that in the description of Muslim culture in South Asia de Laet abstained from any religious polemic. His criticism of the Mughal state was, however, still



joannes de laet

199

based on ancient concepts such as Oriental despotism, which seemed to be evidenced by the information given by his informants. In this respect, his account contributed to a comprehensive discourse that was at a later point formulated in Bernier’s description of the Mughal state as the epitome of despotic government, and ultimately led to the development of the concept of Orientalism (Lefèvre, ‘Recovering a missing voice’, pp. 454-5; Rubiés, ‘Oriental despotism’, pp. 144-7). Publications Joannes de Laet, De imperio Magni Mogolis sivè India vera commentarius. & varijs auctoribus congestus, Lugduni Batavorum, 1631; Koninklijke Bibliotheek 224 D 26 (digitalised version available through EEB) Joannes de Laet, De imperio Magni Mogolis sivè India vera commentarius. & Varijs auctoribus congestus, Lugduni Batavorum, 16312; Koninklijke Bibliotheek 224 D 25 (digitalised version available through EEB) Joannes de Laet, The topography of the Mogul Empire as known to the Dutch in 1631, trans. E. Lethbridge, Calcutta, 1871 (English trans. of first chapter) J.S. Hoyland (trans.) and S.N. Banerjee (ed.), The empire of the Great Mogol. A translation of de Laet’s Description of India and Fragment of Indian history, Bombay, 1928; Delhi, 1975 (English trans.) Studies M.J. van Ittersum, ‘Knowledge production in the Dutch Republic. The household academy of Hugo Grotius’, Journal of the History of Ideas 72 (2011) 523-48 C. Lefèvre, ‘Recovering a missing voice from Mughal India. The imperial discourse of Jahāngīr (r. 1605-1627) in his memoirs’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 50 (2007) 452-89 J.-P. Rubiés, ‘Oriental despotism and European Orientalism. From Botero to Montesquieu’, Journal of Early Modern History 9 (2005) 109-80 M. van Gelderen, ‘Hugo Grotius und die Indianer. Die kulturhistorische Einordnung Amerikas und seiner Bewohner in das Weltbild der Frühen Neuzeit’, Historische Zeitschrift. Beihefte, new series 34 (2003) 51-78

200

joannes de laet

B. Schmidt, ‘Space, time, travel: Hugo de Groot, Johannes de Laet, and the advancement of geographic learning’, in R.H. Bremmer Jr. and P.G. Hoftijzer (eds), Johannes de Laet (1581-1649). A Leiden polymath, special issue of Lias. Sources and documents relating to the early modern history of ideas 25/2 (1998) 177-99 P.G. Hoftijzer, ‘The library of Johannes de Laet (1581-1649)’, in Bremmer Jr. and Hoftijzer (eds), Johannes de Laet (1581-1649), 201-6 J.-P. Rubiés, ‘Hugo Grotius’s dissertation on the origin of the American peoples and the use of comparative methods’, Journal of the History of Ideas 52 (1991) V.A. Smith, ‘The treasure of Akbar’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1915) 231-43 V.A. Smith, ‘Joannes de Laët on India and Shāhjahān’, Indian Antiquary 43 (1914) 239-44 Roman Siebertz

Paulo da Trindade Friar Paulo da Trinidade Date of Birth Approximately 1570 Place of Birth Macau Date of Death 1651 Place of Death Goa

Biography

Paulo da Trindade was of Portuguese ancestry and was born in Macau around 1570. He entered the Franciscan order in India, and became a lector in theology at St Bonaventura College (Colégio de São Boaventura) in Goa. Between 1633 and 1636, he was the commissioner general of the Franciscan provinces of the Orient, and from the 1630s he acted as the qualifier and deputy of the Inquisition of Goa. He was appointed as Inquisitor, but never actually occupied this position due to his age and state of health. He died in 1651. Trindade became involved in the disputes between Franciscans from India and Portugal over the issue of the independence of the Indian province. Arising from this, a fellow Indian Franciscan, Friar Miguel da Purificação, dedicated to him the Relação defensiva dos filhos da India Oriental (1640), an encomium of the qualities of friars born in the East from Portuguese stock. Trindade wrote short works about theology and law, including the Breve recopilação do poder e autoridade que tem os confessores mendicantes assim súditos como prelados por virtude dos seus privilégios, pera absolver, dispensar, particularmente em partes remotas como as da India Oriental e Ocidental (1619), which contains brief allusions to relations between Christians and Muslims in connection with the coexistence of Christians with Muslims and Hindus. For example, in Article 3 he reflects on Christians born in India, including those originally Muslim or their descendants, being absolved of the crimes of heresy and idolatry. There is also a short passage on matrimony, in which he presents the opinion of various theologians about how to proceed when someone converts to Christianity but continues to cohabit with a Muslim, Jewish or Gentile spouse.

202

paulo da trindade

Friar Paulo’s principal work is the voluminous Conquista espiritual do Oriente (c. 1630-8), a testimonial to the actions of the Franciscans, characterised as soldiers of Christ in the battle against Islam, Hinduism (which the author calls ‘Gentilism’) and other forms of idolatry and ‘heresy’ found in Asia.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Rio de Janeiro, National Library – 25, 1, 004, nos 40, 66, 82, 90, 146 (1636-51; letters from the General Inquisitor of Portugal referring to the positions occupied by Trindade in the Goa Inquisition) MS Lisbon, National Achive of Torre do Tombo – Livro das Monções, 46, fol. 15 (1639); 48, fol. 258 (1643; correspondence between the Viceroy of the State of India and the King of Portugal mentioning that Trindade had disobeyed the prohibition against the appointment of friars born in the East to positions in the Franciscan provinces of the East) Miguel da Purificação, Relação defensiva dos filhos da India Oriental e da Provincia do Apostolo Sam Thomé dos Frades Menores da regular observancia da mesma India, Barcelona, 1640, pp. 3-10 Secondary A.B. Xavier and I. Županov, ‘Franciscan Orientalism’, in A.B. Xavier and I. Županov, Catholic Orientalism, Portuguese empire, Indian knowledge (16th-18th centuries), Delhi, 2015, 158-201 Z. Biedermann, ‘El espacio sujeto al tiempo en la cronística franciscana: una relectura de la Conquista Espiritual do Oriente de Fr. Paulo da Trindade’, in F. Palomo (ed.), La memoria del mundo: clero, erudición y cultura escrita en el mundo ibérico (siglos XVI-XVIII), a monograph from Cuadernos de Historia Moderna Anejos 13 (2014) 221-42 P.S. Faria, A conquista das almas do Oriente. Franciscanos, catolicismo e poder colonial português em Goa (1540-1740), Rio de Janeiro, 2013, pp. 15, 173-207 P.S. Faria, ‘A conquista espiritual da Índia. Armas e evangelho na obra de Frei Paulo da Trindade’, in R.B. Monteiro (ed.), Espelhos deformantes. Fontes, problemas e pesquisas em história moderna (séc. XVI-XIX), São Paulo, 2008, 2-16 V.G. Teixeira, ‘Fr. Paulo da Trindade, OFM. Cronista macaense’, Revista Cultura 28 (2008) 6-15 A.B. Xavier, ‘Itinerários franciscanos na Índia seiscentista, e algumas questões de história e de método’, Lusitania Sacra 18 (2006) 87-116 J.A.F. Carvalho, ‘Il senso della “conquista spirituale” dell’ Oriente da parte dei francescani, secondo fra’ Paolo da Trindade O.F.M.’, in L. Vaccaro (ed.), L’Europa e l’evangelizzazione delle Indie Orientali, Milan, 2005, 235-48



paulo da trindade

203

S.J. d’Cruz, ‘Franciscans in Goa’, Goa, 2003 (Diss. Goa University), pp. 7, 136, 206, 335 F.F. Lopes, Colectânea de estudos de história e literatura, Lisbon, 1997, vol. 1, pp. 105-6 F.F. Lopes, ‘Introdução’, in Paulo da Trindade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, Lisbon, 1962, vol. 1, pp. vii-xvii

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Conquista espiritual do Oriente, ‘Spiritual conquest of the Orient’ Date Between 1630 and 1638 Original Language Portuguese Description Conquista espiritual do Oriente (in full, Conquista espiritual do Oriente em que se dá relação de algumas cousas mais notáveis que fizeram os frades menores da Santa Província de S. Tomé da Índia Oriental em a pregação da fé e conversão dos infiéis, em mais de trinta reinos, do Cabo de Boa Esperança até as remotíssimas ilhas do Japão, ‘Spiritual conquest of the Orient in which there are accounts of some more notable things the Friars Minor of St Thomas Province of Oriental India did in the preaching of the faith and conversion of the infidels, in over 30 kingdoms, ranging from the Cape of Good Hope to the remotest islands of Japan’), is an account of the activities of the Franciscans of the Province of St Thomas of India, in their efforts to evangelise the peoples of Asia and eastern Africa. The single known manuscript of the work is held in the Vatican Library (Cod. Lat. 7746) and comprises 1,193 pages. The edition published in 1962 (cited in the references below) is in three volumes, following the division of the work into three parts indicated by Trindade in the Preface. The first part (vol. 1, 373 pages) covers the work of the Franciscans in Goa and Bardez; the second (vol. 2, 418 pages) describes Franciscan activity between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari); and the third (vol. 3, 571 pages) is about Ceylon, Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Malacca, China and Japan. Relations between Christians and Muslims are referred to throughout Conquista, from the very first pages of the work. One of Trindade’s central arguments is that spiritual and secular conquests in the East were always related: the Portuguese ‘with arms, conquered many lands’, and the religious ‘with preaching, won over many souls’ (vol. 1, pp. 51, 75-6).

204

paulo da trindade

Portuguese fighting against the Muslims in the East was as much about spiritual conquest (in order to convert them to Catholicism) as secular (so that they would give up control over the spice trade and other Asian products). In this sense, a providentialist perspective predominates – the idea that God intervenes in the course of history to bring about the victory of Christians over the ‘enemies’ of the Catholic faith. Trindade sees the history of Portugal itself merged with the history of resistance to Islam, since the kingdom came into being against the background of the battles to expel Muslims from Iberia (vol. 1, p. 52). The Portuguese extended this war, combating Islam in India, eastern Africa and elsewhere (vol. 1, pp. 52-67). In order to justify this resistance against Muslims, leading Franciscans dedicated themselves to destroying Islam, among them St Francis of Assisi himself, who preached the Gospel against the ‘false sect of Muḥammad’ ( falsa seita de Mafamede), and also appeared in miraculous visions, ‘sword in hand’ to ‘slay many Moors’ (vol. 1, pp. 11-12, 71). In Part I, Trindade focuses on the conversion of the ‘Gentiles’ (the Hindus), though there are references to relations between Christians and Muslims, especially the sultanates of the Deccan (vol. 1, pp. 30-1, 88-9, 104, 271-3, 307). In Part II, which deals with areas that had larger Muslim populations, there are fuller references. On the east African coast, Trindade refers to a usurper who seized power in Kilwa, a ‘follower of Muḥammad’s law’ (seguidor da lei de Mafamede) and an enemy of the Portuguese (vol. 2, p. 8). He goes on to talk about the Mombasa martyrs, massacred in 1631 by the local king, who, despite being baptised in the Catholic faith, attacked Christians, destroyed Catholic images and churches, and transformed the main church into a mosque (vol. 2, pp. 11-19). The Christians on the Island of Socotra mingled together different traditions so that ‘they were neither Christians nor Muslims nor Gentiles’, possessing churches and revering the cross, but practising circumcision, marrying more than one wife, and worshiping the moon (vol. 2, pp. 20-7). In India, he employs the unsuccessful attempt to persuade the Great Mughal to abandon Islam as an occasion to praise his confreres’ missionary work (vol. 2, pp. 39-43). In what he wrote, Trindade followed chronicles of Portuguese expansion and copied passages from them, including João de Barros’ Décadas da Ásia (Lopes, ‘Introdução’, pp. x-xii; Strathern, Kingship and conversion, pp. 15-16) These chronicles contain extensive accounts of fighting and hostilities, which helps to explain why Conquista, a work written



paulo da trindade

205

by a Franciscan, advocates warfare and encouragement to destroy the ‘enemy’ rather than the way of pacific proselytism. Significance Conquista is a defence of Franciscan missionary work in the East told from a Catholic moralising perspective, in which historical facts are mixed with miracles. It is from this key interpretative angle that Trindade approaches Islam, so that the picture he gives of Muslims is little different from earlier accounts. They are worldly, and obstinately defiant towards the message of Christianity, as typified by the Muslims of Ormuz, who ‘spend their lives relishing all the delights and luxuries of the world’, though ‘they have little disposition to receive the doctrine of the Holy Gospel’ (vol. 2, p. 31). Trindade rejects Islamic beliefs out of hand, without any attempt at dialogue and few adaptations of Christian teachings to the customs of the Muslims of the East, although there are brief references to teaching Christianity in verse chanted in native languages. The work exerted some influence on later authors, among them Jorge Cardoso (d. 1669) in his Agiologio Lusitano, the Jesuit Fernão de Queiroz (d. 1688) in Conquista temporal e espiritual de Ceylão, and Fernando da Soledade (d. 1737) in Historia serafica da ordem dos frades menores (see Lopes, ‘Introdução’, p. xii). Publications MS Vatican, Vatican Library – Cod. Lat. 7746 (1679; copy of a lost MS of the work sent from India to Madrid) Paulo da Trindade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente em que se dá relação de algumas cousas mais notáveis que fizeram os frades menores da Santa Província de S. Tomé da Índia Oriental em a pregação da fé e conversão dos infiéis, em mais de trinta reinos, do Cabo de Boa Esperança até as remotíssimas ilhas do Japão, ed. F. Lopes, 3 vols, Lisbon, 1962-7 A. Meersman and E. Pieris (eds and trans.), Chapters on the introduction to Ceylon, taken from the Conquista [e]spíritual do Oriente of Friar Paulo da Trinidade [sic] O.F.M., Colombo, 1972 (excerpts; English trans.) Studies Xavier and Županov, ‘Franciscan Orientalism’ Biedermann, ‘El espacio sujeto al tiempo en la cronística franciscana’ Faria, A conquista das almas do Oriente, pp. 15, 173-207

206

paulo da trindade

Faria, ‘A conquista espiritual da Índia’ Teixeira, ‘Fr. Paulo da Trindade, O.F.M.’ A. Strathern, Kingship and conversion in sixteenth-century Sri Lanka, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 15-16, 195, 218, 223, 238-9, 244 Xavier, ‘Itinerários franciscanos’ Carvalho, ‘Il senso della “conquista spirituale” ’ D’Cruz, ‘Franciscans in Goa’, pp. 7, 136, 206, 335 Lopes, Colectânea de estudos de história e literatura, vol. 1, pp. 105-6 Lopes, ‘Introdução’ Patricia de Faria

Sebastião Manrique Date of Birth Between 1587 and 1600 Place of Birth Porto Date of Death 1669 Place of Death London

Biography

The circumstances of Sebastião Manrique’s birth and early life are not known, except that he was born in Porto and that he was professed in the monastery of the Augustinian Friars in Goa in 1604 (Machado, Biblioteca Lusitania, p. 629). Nothing is known about his life after this until his Itinerario begins on 8 May 1628, with his departure from Cochin for Bengal. Between 1629 and 1646, he travelled around Bengal and the areas of what is today Myanmar, and visited Macau and the Philippines with the intention of evangelising in Japan. Then, with a stop-over on the island of Java, he travelled to Bengal and returned to Europe, crossing through northern India, Iran and the Middle East. From this long journey resulted Itinerario de las Indias Orientales (Rome, 1649 and 1653). He settled in Rome, where he was given the position of Attorney General and Definer of the Augustinian Province of Portugal. He died in London in 1669, murdered by one of his servants, who threw his corpse into the River Thames. Nothing is known about his reasons for travelling to England (Luard and Hosten, ‘Introduction’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary D.B. Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana historica, critica, e cronologica. Na qual se comprehende a noticia dos authores Portuguezes, e das obras, que compuseraõ desde o tempo da promulgaçaõ da ley da graça até o tempo prezente, Lisbon, 1741, p. 629 Secondary Art. ‘Manrique (Fr. Sebastien)’, in P.G. de Santiago Vela (ed.), Ensayo de una biblioteca ibero-americana de la Orden de San Agustin, vol. 5, Madrid, 1920, 124-6 E. Luard and H.C. Hosten, ‘Introduction’, in Luard and Hosten (ed. and trans.), The travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique (1629-1643), Oxford, 1927, vol. 1, pp. xxvii-ix

208

sebastião manrique

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique Itinerario; El itinerario de las misiones orientales, ‘Missionary journey to eastern India made by Fr Sebastian Manrique’ Breve relação dos reinos de Pegu, Arracão, Brama e dos impérios Calaminhã, Siammon e Grão Mogol, ‘The travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique (1629-1643)’ Date 1649 Original Language Castilian Description The Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique is 470 pages long in the 1649 and 1653 editions, containing 89 chapters divided into four sections. The first details Manrique’s journey to Arakan (in present-day Myanmar), May 1628-April 1637 (39 chapters); the second his continuation to China, April 1637-August 1639 (9 chapters); the third his travels through India, April-November 1641 (22 chapters); and the fourth his return to Europe through Afghanistan, Persia and Syria, June 1642-July 1643 (19 chapters) The work is written in a very personal, almost outlandish form of Castilian, with interpolations of Portuguese and numerous terms from Asian languages, almost all Indian. As a result, the only version that is entirely comprehensible is the English translation by Charles Eckford Luard (1869-1928) and Henry Hosten (1873-1935), who were well acquainted with the languages of India and the regions through which Manrique passed. In his descriptions of what he observed on his travels, Manrique makes frequent reference to Islam and Muslims, nearly always in negative and deprecatory terms. He writes of Muslims and ‘their accursed Maometan faith’ (su maldita secta Maometana) (Luard and Hosten, Travels of Fray Sebastien, vol. 1, p. 184; references that follow are to this edition), comments that they follow the ‘false and wicked prophet Muḥammad’ (su torpe y falso Profeta Maomet) (vol. 1, p. 67; vol. 2, pp. 141, 304, 326), and refers to the ‘wicked’ and ‘accursed Alcoran’ and its false doctrines (vol. 2, pp. 80, 106, 258). His attitude is summed up in what he says about a



sebastião manrique

209

monument in Sirhind ‘dedicated by the wicked, misled Agarene [follower of Hagar, i.e. Muslim] to his five useless nimasas or times of prayer which are so recommended in the accursed Alcoran by their false prophet and undoubted precursor of Antichrist’ (vol. 2, p. 182). Manrique’s distaste for Islam is shown in further remarks. About Mughal rule in India he comments: the ‘Mogors were not only invaders and tyrannical usurpurs but also enemies of Christianity. For they desired to extirpate it wholly from the Orient, where they would be none but Mussuleyemans, followers of the precepts of the evil and false Alcoran’ (vol. 1, pp. 285-6). Likewise, he refers to ‘Mecca and Maxete [Mashhad] as the chief shrines of their false religion’ (vol. 2, pp. 247-8). Significance Manrique’s Itinerario conforms to what can be referred to as ‘Portuguese-Moorish ambiguity’ (ambigüedad lusomora). On the one hand, he repeatedly expresses abhorrence and loathing for Islam and Muḥammad, mainly within parenthesis. But on the other, he cannot conceal his appreciation for aspects of Islamic life, recalling with nostalgia the memory of Muslim friends, showing appreciation for their pious evocations of Allāh, and acknowledging that, despite its tyrannical government, the Mughal Empire is superior to European states. In fact, he uses what he witnesses in the Mughal Empire to criticise the inability of the Kingdom of Portugal and Spain to capitalise on earlier efforts to bring India under European rule. Publications Sebastião Manrique, Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique, Rome: Por Francisco Caballo, 1649 (digitalised version available through Google Books) Sebastião Manrique, Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique, Rome: Guillelmo Halle, 1653 (original Castilian text); res-1947-v (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) E. Luard and H.C. Hosten (ed. and trans.), The travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique (1629-1643), 2 vols, Oxford, 1927 Sebastião Manrique, El itinerario de las misiones Orientales, 2 vols, Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1946, (original Castilian text) Sebastião Manrique, Breve relação dos reinos de Pegu, Arracão, Brama e dos impérios Calaminhã, Siammon e Grão Mogol, Lisbon: Edições Cotovia, 1997 (Portuguese trans.)

210

sebastião manrique

Studies H. Didier, ‘La corruption de la monarchie ibérique unie dans le miroir de la corruption des états asiatiques d’après l’Itinerario de las misiones orientales de Frei Sebastião Manrique’, Revista Informática e-Spania 15 (December 2013) H. Didier, ‘Saudade da Índia et crise de l’union hispano-portugaise dans l’Itinerario de las misiones orientales de Frei Sebastião Manrique’, Revista Informática e-Spania 16 (December 2012) H. Didier, ‘Le bilinguisme castillan-portugais en Asie aux XVIe-XVIIe siècles et le “portuñol/portunhol asiático” ’, in Cultures lusophones et hispanophones. Penser la relation, XXXIVe congrès de la Société des Hispanistes Français, Paris, 2010, 191-8 Luard and Hosten, ‘Introduction’ Hugues Didier

Jesuit reports on India in the 17th century Daniello Bartoli, Fernão Guerreiro, Luys de Guzmán, Pierre du Jarric, Louis de Dieu

Biography

Between 1580 and 1605, the Society of Jesus first established its presence in the Mughal Empire through a series of three missionary journeys led by Rodolfo Acquaviva and Jerome Xavier. The Jesuits came in response to a request to the Portuguese authorities in Goa from the Emperor Akbar, who wanted priests to come to explain the Christian scriptures. The nascent Catholic order had arrived in Goa almost 40 years earlier in 1542, just one year after its inception under the leadership of Ignatius of Loyola. Thus, records of its activities in Mughal India relate a formative part of the order’s history. Seventeenth-century authors contributed to a significant increase in texts pertaining to the region, its inhabitants and customs, and to the history of Jesuit exploits there. Jesuit reports on India in the 17th century are available from the works of five authors: Luys de Guzmán (1544-1605), Fernão Guerreiro (15501617), Pierre du Jarric (1566-1617), Louis de Dieu (1590-1642) and Daniello Bartoli (1608-85). The biographies of these authors are as follows. Luys de Guzmán, born in 1544 in Osorno (Palencia), Spain, was the first of the Jesuit historians to compile and publish excerpts from annual reports and letters sent by Jesuit missionaries, including those from India. Guzmán was the Rector of Belmonte and Alcalá, and twice the Provincial of Toledo. This made him the leader of the Spanish missionaries who increasingly accompanied their Portuguese counterparts to India and beyond. He died in Madrid on 10 January 1605. Fernão Guerreiro was born in Almodovar, Portugal, in 1550. He was a priest and teacher, and was later appointed Superior of the House of Profes in Lisbon. He provides a careful synopsis of the letters of the Jesuit missionaries in India from 1600 to 1609. Largely free of annotation, the abstracts of these letters, presented as a series of five volumes, provide first-hand accounts of the period. He died in Lisbon in 1617. Pierre du Jarric was born in Toulouse in 1566, entered the Society of Jesus in 1582, and taught philosophy and moral theology in Bordeaux. Physically unable to join the missionaries, he dedicated himself to

212

jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

promoting the vision through his writings. He died in Saintes, France, on 2 March 1617. Louis de Dieu, born 7 April 1590 in Vlissingen (Flushing), was a Dutch Protestant minister and Orientalist. Originally from Brussels, his family fled to the Netherlands during the Spanish invasion of 1585. De Dieu studied theology with Thomas Erpenius and Jacob Golius in Leiden, and had a command of numerous Oriental languages: Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic and Persian. His scholarship was mainly concerned with translations of the Bible, the most famous being Critica sacra. He also produced a comparative grammar of a number of Semitic languages (Grammatica linguarum orientalium. Hebraeorum, Chaldaeorum et Syrorum inter se collatarum, Leiden, 1628). In 1635, de Dieu gained access to two Persian texts on the lives of Christ and St Peter by the Jesuit missionary Jerome Xavier (1549-1617). In 1639, de Dieu published these, along with his Latin translation and annotations, as Historia Christi and Historia S. Petri. He died in Leiden three years later, on 23 December 1642. Daniello Bartoli was born in Ferrara, Italy, on 12 February 1608, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1623. A convincing orator, he was a preacher in several principal cities and was eventually appointed as a teacher of rhetoric. Bartoli’s writings on India are part of his larger history of the Society’s missionary activities, which was published in six volumes: ‘The life and institute of St Ignatius’ (1650); ‘The history of the Company of Jesus’, Asia Part 1 (1653); ‘History of Japan’, Asia Part 2 (1660); ‘History of China’, Asia Part 3 (1661); ‘History of England’, Europe Part 1 (1667); ‘History of Italy’, Europe Part 2 (1673). He composed all of these in Italian prose, which made the collection accessible to a large popular audience. His writings were impressive in both detail and scope and, like other Jesuit historians, he intended not only faithfully to record past events, but also to promote the Order and to stimulate further missionary endeavours. He died in Rome on 13 January 1685.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del P. Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù, Rome, 1653 Fernão Guerreiro, Relaçam annual das coisas que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus na India e Iapão no annos de 600 e 601 as suas missoes . . . nos anos 1600-1603 e do processo da conversão e Cristandade da quelas partes: tiradas das cartas gẽraes que de là vierão, vol. 1, Evora, 1603



jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

213

Luys de Guzmán, Historia de las misiones que han hecho los religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus para predicar el Sancto Evangelio en la India Oriental y en los Reynos de la China y Japon, vol. 1, Alcalá, 1601 Pierre du Jarric, Histoire des choses plus memorables advenues tant ez Indes Orientales, que autre païs de la descouverte des Portugais, en l’establissement et progrez de la foy Chrestienne et Catholique; et principalment de ce que les Religieux de la Compagnie de Iésus y ont faict et enduré pour la mesme fin; depuis qu’ils y sont entrez jusques à l’an 1600, 3 vols, Bordeaux, 1608-14 Louis de Dieu, Dāstān-i Masīḥ, Historia Christi Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminata P. Hieronimo Xavier reddita, Leiden, 1639 Secondary A. Eraly, The Mughal world. Life in India’s last golden age, Delhi, 2013 D. Halft, ‘Hebrew Bible quotations in Arabic transcription in Safavid Iran of the 11th/17th century. Sayyed Aḥmad ʿAlavī’s Persian refutations of Christianity’, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 1 (2013) 235-52 M. Faruqui, Princes of the Mughal Empire 1504-1719, Cambridge, 2012 P. Carvalho, Mirʾāt al-quds (Mirror of holiness). A life of Christ for Emperor Akbar, Leiden, 2012 T. Abe, The Jesuit mission to New France. A new interpretation in the light of the earlier Jesuit experience in Japan, Leiden, 2011 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shi‘i responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2004, 247-69 H. Didier, ‘Muslim heterodoxy, Persian murtaddun and Jesuit missionaries at the court of King Akbar 1580-1605’, Heythrop Journal 49 (2008) 898-939 R. Pourjavady and S. Schmidtke, ‘Muslim polemics against Judaism and Christianity in 18th century Iran. The literary sources of Ā qa Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī’s (1732-1801) Rādd-i shubuhāt al-kuffār’, Studia Iranica 35 (2006) 69-94 J. Rubiés, Travel and ethnology in the Renaissance. South India through European eyes 1250-1625, Cambridge, 2000 D. Curto, ‘European historiography on the East’, The Oxford history of historical writing, vol. 3: 1400-1800, ed. J. Rabasa et al., Oxford, 2012, 536-55 R. Gulbenkian, The translation of the four Gospels into Persian, Lisbon, 1981 E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London, 1932 C. Payne (trans.), Akbar and the Jesuits. An account of the Jesuit missions to the court of Akbar by Father Pierre du Jarric, SJ, London, 1926 (English trans.) C. Payne (trans.), Jahangir and the Jesuits. With an account of the travels of Benedict Goes and the mission to Pegu from the relations of Father Fernao Guerreiro, SJ, London, 1930 (English trans.) V. Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul, Oxford, 1917

214

jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

H. Hosten, ‘The Annual Relation of Fr. Fernao Guerreiro 1607-8’, Journal of Punjab Historical Society 5 (1918) 385-408 W. Juynboll, Zeventiende eeuwsche beo-efenaars van het Arabisch, Leiden, 1931 F. Goldie, The first Christian mission to the great Mogul, London, 1897 P. Suau, Les bienheureux martyrs de Salsette. Rodolphe d’Acquaviva et ses compagnons de la Compagnie de Jésus, Paris, 1893

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Jesuit reports on India in the 17th century Date 17th century Original Language French; Italian; Latin; Portuguese; Spanish Description The works discussed here are the primary sources for understanding the experience of 17th-century Jesuit missionaries in Mughal India. These include historical accounts, compiled activity reports, original correspondence, and religious writings. The works of five representatives are considered below: Luys de Guzmán, Fernão Guerreiro, Pierre du Jarric, Daniello Bartoli, and Louis de Dieu. Luys de Guzmán’s Historia de las missiones que han hecho los religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus para predicar el Sancto Evangelio en la India Oriental y en los Reynos de la China y Japon (‘History of the missions undertaken by the religious of the Society of Jesus to preach the Holy Gospel in the East Indies and Kingdoms of China and Japan’) recounts events from the period between 1565 and 1600. Work on the text had begun by 1593, and it was printed as two volumes in 1601. As can be attested by the affixed warrant, the order enjoyed the full support of the king of Spain, and the publication was celebrated by both church and state. Whereas vol. 2 pertains only to Japan, vol. 1 includes a biography of Francis Xavier (1506-52), co-founder of the Order with Ignatius of Loyola (1491-56), and detailed descriptions of India, sometimes juxtaposed to those of Japan, Ethiopia, Brazil and other regions of Jesuit ministry. These are compiled from correspondence and contain abstracts, narrated summaries and substantive portions of letters. Historia provides first-hand accounts of the attitudes and reflections of these early Christian missionaries as they seek to become acclimatised to the culture, to understand the intellectual climate, and ultimately to convince Akbar and his advisors of the benefits of the faith they proclaim.



jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

215

Fernão Guerreiro’s Relaçam provides a series of five biennial reports that recount the activities of Jesuit missionaries (Relaçam annual das coisas que fizeram os padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas missões na India e Japão, China, Cataio, Tidore, Ternate, Ambóino, Malaca, Pegu, Bengala, Bisnagá, Maduré, costa da Pescaria, Manar, Ceilão, Travancor, Malabar, Sodomala, Goa, Salcete, Lahor, Diu, Etiopia a alta ou Preste João, Monomotapa, Angola, Guiné, Serra Leoa, Cabo Verde e Brasil; nos anos 1600-1609 e do processo da conversão a Cristandade da quelas partes: tiradas das cartas gẽraes que de là vierão, vols 1-5. ‘Annual report of the things done by the fathers of the Society of Jesus in India and Japan . . . in their missions in the years 1600-9, and the process of conversion to Christianity of those parts: taken from the general letters that came from there’). Guerreiro follows Guzmán’s text closely, and this accounts for their similarity in style, and the tendency of later authors to cite these works in tandem. Guzmán had sent a copy of his work to Guerreiro, who apparently carried forward this manner of reporting to the year 1609. Like Guzmán, Guerreiro operated primarily as a compiler rather than an interpreter, and this allows for largely unencumbered access to the original accounts. However, only approximately 100 pages within the overall work pertain to India. These are spread across the five volumes. ‘Of what was done by the fathers of the Society in the regions of India in the year 1601’ is the largest section. It is 51 pages in length and contains 20 brief chapters. Chapters 3 and 4 (1603), entitled ‘Of the Mogor (Mughal) mission and the journey of ours with him to the kingdoms of the Deccan, and the embassy he sent to Goa’, and ‘Of the residence in Lahore, and what occurred there, and the great respect that the infidels have for the Father who is there’, provide primary accounts of Jesuit impressions during and shortly after the last of the three missionary journeys to Mughal lands. The reports provide accounts that underscore the virtues and heroic sufferings of priests such as Francis Xavier, Manuel Pinheiro, Jerome Xavier and Bento de Góis. Although the purpose of the journey is the ‘winning of souls’, the episodes often include descriptions of the empire and its rulers, drawing attention to the implicit political implications of these missionary encounters. In the main, the plan was to bring about the Christianisation of the empire through the conversion of the sovereign. The mission was strategically intended to bring about a religious and political shift towards alignment with Christian Portugal. Akbar’s letter to the viceroy in Goa, for example, which is fully transcribed in Relaçam, indicates a sincere interest that stirs up hope for the ultimate

216

jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

success of the mission through the conversion of the emperor. This hope is further hinted at by candid discussions with members of Akbar’s inner circle, including Abū l-Faz̤l (1551-1602) whose views are often described as post-Islamic. Relaçam is best known, however, for its description Akbar’s heir, Jahāngīr, who ascended the throne in 1605. Though the Jesuits were disappointed by the father, the ambition endured among them that the son might convert to Christianity. This did not occur, although Jahāngīr continued the policies that allowed for conversion and the establishment of churches. The most extraordinary example of this was the permission granted for Father Xavier to baptise publicly three of Jahāngīr’s nephews, Tahmuras, Bāyasanghar and Hoshang, the sons of his dead brother. This was a period of seemingly unrestricted proclamation of Christianity in public, and the establishment of small congregations, which would only barely survive subsequent reigns. Guerreiro reproduces the substance of three letters written by Jerome Xavier to the Jesuit Provincial of Goa, which detail the activities of the missionaries and describe the situation. As recounted in part 4, chs 1-4, and part 5, chs 5-9, the general populace in Lahore – and this would be repeated in Agra and elsewhere – became fascinated with European religious art. Xavier records that, when a painting entitled Madonna del Popolo was first displayed in the church, nearly 10,000 visitors came each day to marvel at it. The display of the painting, as he explains, followed a prepared order of service that included very direct preaching prior to unveiling the Virgin and her son. Visitors were brought into the church and, before being shown the painting, were informed of the salvific work of ‘Jesus and the Mother of Consolation’ and the ‘impostures and misdeeds of Mahomet’. Whereas the religious attitudes of the Mughal aristocracy at this time were apparently eclectic, the Jesuit approach reflects a combative confidence of imminent success. Pierre du Jarric’s Histoire des choses plus memorables advenues tant ez Indes Orientales, que autre païs de la descouverte des Portugais, en l’establissement et progrez de la foy Chrestienne et Catholique; et principalment de ce que les Religieux de la Compagnie de Iésus y ont faict et enduré pour la mesme fin (‘History of the most memorable occurrences in the East Indies and other lands discovered by the Portuguese in the establishment and progress of the Christian and Catholic faith, and principally what the religious of the Society of Jesus have accomplished and endured’) was published in three volumes (1608, 1610 and 1614) and



jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

217

recounts events through the year 1609. It includes almost 300 pages of material pertaining to the Mughal missions. The work relies heavily on Guzmán’s Historia for information up to the year 1599, and on Guerreiro’s Relaçam from 1599 to 1609, but it goes beyond these by adding accounts from Albert Laertius, the Jesuit Provincial of India. The quality of the work illustrates the interrelation and network of communication between the Jesuit provinces. It draws from a massive amount of source material: approximately 2,500 quarto pages from documents in four different languages. The meticulous attention to detail testifies to the care and accuracy of these historians in reproducing accounts both in summary and through direct quotation. Despite the scope of its sources and the erudition of the author, Histoire is regarded as more readable than the rather dry reports of his predecessors. This contributed to du Jarric’s success in promoting the Jesuit work among the French people and their monarch, as this text also carried a dedication from the king of France. Du Jarric devotes a considerable portion of his work to recounting stories of conversion, baptisms and church festivals. Akbar’s heir, Prince Salīm, who is later crowned as Jahāngīr, is again of principal interest. Important personages such as Abū l-Faz̤l and Azīz Koka are regularly mentioned, but Jahāngīr takes centre stage because the central aim is to see a Christian on the Mughal throne. However, an important shift in strategy can also be noted within these fuller descriptions of the progress made by the Jesuits and the difficulties they faced. Now greater attention is given to the people at large, and to the fledgling congregations composed predominantly of poor persons from lower castes. The writings honour the memory of the vanguard, and are intended to stimulate future generations of supporters and missionaries. Histoire brings to a close the first phase of the Jesuit campaign in north India, at once consolidating the work of earlier historians and expanding the scale of their accounts. The last, and perhaps most popularly influential of these histories is Daniello Bartoli’s Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Rodolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù (‘Mission to the Great Mughal of Father Rudolph Aquaviva of the Society of Jesus’). This comprises 24 sections and was published as part of his larger Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù dell’Italia (‘History of the Society of Jesus’) and printed in six folio volumes in Rome between 1650 and 1673. The text contains approximately 110 pages concerning the Jesuit work among the Mughals. Bartoli’s description follows that of the existing Jesuit histories, but goes beyond these by

218

jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

adding approximately 40 additional sources. (Though Goldie and Suau find this useful, Maclagan regards these as less authoritative and more open to conjecture than the earlier documents available to Guzmán and Guerreiro.) Missione recounts the events of the first Jesuit mission to the Mughal Empire according to the descriptions of the Jesuit missionary Rodolfo Acquaviva. The narrative elucidates the interactions between the priest and the Mughal sovereign. Akbar’s unsolicited invitation to the Portuguese in Goa, along with his peculiar personal proclivities, give rise to the assumption that he is dissatisfied with his current circumstances and open to a Christian future. Bartoli, however, the experienced rhetorician, knows the end of the story, and so skilfully contrasts Akbar’s character as unstable and capricious with that of Rodolfo and his company, who are the very picture of holiness and virtue. Despite the Jesuits’ successful contestations with opposing Muslim clerics, Akbar does not convert bur rather institutes a new and universal faith in his domain called dīn-i ilāhī. The final representative author, Louis de Dieu, is not a Jesuit, but rather a Protestant. Although he is adamantly opposed to aspects of Catholic scriptural interpretation, this Dutch Calvinist provides a great service to European readers by rendering the writings of Jerome Xavier into Latin for the first time. De Dieu produced annotated translations of two Persian texts composed in India by the Jesuit missionary, which were presented to Akbar in 1602: Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ (‘Mirror of holiness and history of the Messiah’). These were originally composed in Spanish, but only Persian translations of them remain. De Dieu published these in Leiden as Historia Christi Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate and Historia S. Petri Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate in (‘History of Christ written in Persian, though in many ways contaminated’, and ‘History of St Peter written in Persian, though in many ways contaminated’). The Persian texts are presented with Latin translations, the first in 206 folios, the other in 160 folios. As indicated by the title and clearly stated in the annotations, the purpose is not only to render these texts into a European language, but also to demonstrate what de Dieu described as the Catholic misrepresentations of the Christian message because of Xavier’s use of apocryphal traditions. Despite de Dieu’s acrimonious commentary, his translation introduces a key source for the study of Jesuit missiology. The text is a window into the thought and work of one of the order’s early luminaries. Xavier’s approach and socio-linguistic usage demonstrate a nuanced



jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

219

understanding of the Muslim context and a serious attempt to contextualise Catholic Christian belief for a Persianate Muslim audience. Significance The works of these Jesuit authors were influential in shaping European ideas of Islam in general and of Mughal India in particular. However, they inform the reader as much or more about the Jesuits themselves as about the peoples they encountered. Bartoli’s Missione, for example, draws attention to particular characters at the initial phase of the Jesuit mission to the Mughals. Focus is placed upon the key players, Akbar and Rodolfo, as the determinants of the course of history. The outcome depends on Akbar: if he converts to Christianity, then the mission is a success because it is assumed that the empire will follow his lead. The encounter of two nations, or civilisations, is encapsulated in these two representatives. Thus, Christianity – like Rodolfo – is virtuous, chaste and firmly established, while Islam – like Akbar – is worldly, wanton and unstable. It is also striking that, despite the immense cultural and linguistic barriers and the absence of intelligible scriptures, there is still a sense that Akbar is just on the verge of converting to Christianity. Accounts such as this, which became broadly disseminated in vernacular Italian, helped to promulgate a glorified image of the Society of Jesus and the seemingly unstoppable expansive energy of Christian civilisation. Writers such as Bartoli and du Jarric built upon the reports and letters compiled by Guzmán and Guerreiro, which contained valuable historical and ethnographic data, to produce what at times reads like a curious blend of hagiography and travelogue. This popularises the heroic faith of the main characters, but often at the expense of the cultures and religions being described. It is significant to observe the manner in which the texts present the success of the missions as beneficial for both church and state. Following Guzmán’s inclusion of a preface written by the king of Spain, both subsequent histories, in French and Italian, were given royal support. This underscores the inseparable political implications of these missionary ventures. The Jesuits succeeded in bringing a Bible to Akbar’s court, as originally requested. But the massive Royal Polyglot Bible, which contained versions in Hebrew, Chaldean, Latin and Greek, proved inaccessible to the Persian readers. Nevertheless, as recorded by the Mughal historian Badāʾūnī, if the Jesuits could not provide a legible Bible, then the great Mughal would create his own. And, as recounted by Antonio Monserrate, who accompanied Rodolfo Acquaviva on the first journey in 1580, the

220

jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

translation was underway less than four weeks after the arrival of the Jesuits. Although there is no extant version, Capuchin records lament the loss of ‘Akbar’s Bible’ in the fire of 1857 in Lucknow. This is a metaphor for the engagement between these Christians and Muslims in 17th-century India. Great efforts were made, but with few lasting results. In subsequent generations, the practice of Christianity was forbidden and churches were closed, though the interactions crystalised in the Jesuit reports continue to capture the imagination. For some Christians, this is a tale of the great fish that got away. For some Muslims, it is an account of megalomaniacal rulers of a society in dire need of religious reform. A more nuanced read, however, whether of Xavier or his Mughal contemporaries, offers a window into Akbar’s ʿibādat-khāna (house of worship), where leading religious thinkers were engaged in extended theological discussions. Although one can only surmise about the issues raised by a Mughal translation of the Bible, Xavier’s compositions reveal a groundbreaking attempt to communicate the Christian message by a seasoned Jesuit representative who had lived amongst Indian Muslims for nearly 20 years. Regardless of these strides taken towards presenting the Bible in Mughal India, interest in these was overshadowed by the completion in 1600 of another text, Āʾīnā-i ḥaqq-numā (‘The truth-showing mirror’), a polemical philosophical treatise that subsequently became the central, though divisive, presentation of Christianity to Persian speaking regions. In conclusion, 17th-century Jesuit writings provide accounts of European Christian perceptions of their encounters with Indian Muslims at the apex of Mughal rule. They sometimes confirm and sometimes challenge other historical accounts from this context. The primary benefit is that they allow readers today access to these events through first-hand accounts. Publications Luys de Guzmán, Historia de las missiones que han hecho los religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus para predicar el Sancto Evangelio en la India Oriental y en los Reynos de la China y Japon, vol. 1, Alcalá, 1601; bdh0000014719 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nacional Hispánica) Toshi Arai (trans.), ‘Gusuman tōhō dendō shi’, Tanba-shi Tenri Jihōsha Shōwa 19-20 (1944-5) (Japanese trans.)



jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

221

Luys de Guzmán, História de las missiones que han hecho los religiosos de la Compañia de Iesus / 2, En la qual se contienen siete libros con los quales se remata la historia de los reynos de la Iapon, hasta el ano de mil y seyscientos, Tokyo, 1976 Fernão Guerreiro, Relaçam annual das coisas que fizeram os padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas missões na India e Japão, China, Cataio, Tidore, Ternate, Ambóino, Malaca, Pegu, Bengala, Bisnagá, Maduré, costa da Pescaria, Manar, Ceilão, Travancor, Malabar, Sodomala, Goa, Salcete, Lahor, Diu, Etiopia a alta ou Preste João, Monomotapa, Angola, Guiné, Serra Leoa, Cabo Verde e Brasil; nos anos 1600-1609 e do processo da conversão a Cristandade da quelas partes: tiradas das cartas gẽraes que de là vierão, Évora, 1603; Lisbon, 1605, 1607, 1609, 1611 Fernão Guerreiro, Relação anual das coisas que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas Missões do Japão, China, Cataio . . . Nos anos de 1600 a 1609 e do processo da conversão e cristandade daquelas partes; tiradas das cartas que os missionários de lá escreveram, ed. A. Viegas, 3 vols, Coimbra, 1930-42; r-27918-v_3 (digitalised copy available through Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) Pierre du Jarric, Histoire des choses plus memorables advenues tant ez Indes Orientales, que autre païs de la descouverte des Portugais, en l’establissement et progrez de la foy Chrestienne et Catholique; et principalment de ce que les Religieux de la Compagnie de Iésus y ont faict et enduré pour la mesme fin; depuis qu’ils y sont entrez jusques à l’an 1600, 3 vols, Bordeaux, 1608-14; Jes. 444 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Pierre du Jarric, Nouvelle Histoire des choses plus mémorables advenus tant és Indes Orientale qu’autres pays de la descouverte des Portugais en l’establissement et progrez de la foy chrestienne et catholique, et principalement de ce que les Religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus y ont faict et enduré pour la mesme fin depuis qu’ils y sont entrez iusques à présent, le tout recueilly . . . et mis en ordre par le P. Pierre Du Jarric, (s.l.), 1615 C.H. Payne (ed. and trans.), Akbar and the Jesuits. An account of the Jesuit missions to the court of Akbar by Father Pierre Du Jarric, SJ, London, 1926, New Delhi, 1979, 2014, London, 2005 (English trans.; only includes sections on Akbar)

222

jesuit reports on india in the 17th century

Louis de Dieu, Historia Christi Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate (Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ) and Historia S. Petri Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate (Dāstān San Pedro by Jerome Xavier (1549-1617), Leiden, 1639 Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù, Rome, 1653; Jes. 1106 f (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compagnia de Giesu, Bologna, 1672 Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù, Rome, 1714; Jes. 951 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù, Piacenza, 1819; Jes. 95 m (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù, Venice, 1830 Daniello Bartoli, Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù, Brescia, 1837 Daniello Bartoli, Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù dell’Italia, ed. M. Biondi, Florence, 1994 Daniello Bartoli, Missione al Gran Mogòr, ed. B. Bassile, Rome, 1998 Studies Carvalho, Mirʾāt al-quds G. Marietti, Degli uomini e dei fatti della Compagnia di Gesu. Memorie storiche, Turin, 1825-6 (Latin trans.) Charles M. Ramsey

Edward Terry Date of Birth 1590 Place of Birth Leigh, Kent Date of Death 1660 Place of Death Great Greenford, Middlesex

Biography

Edward Terry was a clergyman who went to India with the East India Company fleet in 1615. On arrival, he became chaplain to Sir Thomas Row (Roe or Rowe), British ambassador in the Mughal Court, filling the vacancy left by the death of the Revd John Hall. He returned to England in 1619 and wrote about his experiences, and in 1622 presented his account to the Prince of Wales (who became King Charles I in 1625). It appears that A voyage to East India, which was printed in 1655, expands on that initial work. While Terry was in India, then ruled by the Moghul Emperor Jahāngīr, he witnessed the plague and also the comet that Jahāngīr refers to in his memoirs. According to the court minutes of the East India Company, he was commended by Sir Thomas Roe for ‘his sober, honest and civil life’. On returning to England, he went first to Christ Church, Oxford, where he had studied, then in 1629 he was made rector of Great Greenford, Middlesex, where he remained till his death.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary M. Strachan, art. ‘Edward Terry’, ODNB S.W., art. ‘Edward Terry’, DNB

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations A voyage to East-India Date 1655 Original Language English

224

edward terry

Description In his introduction to A voyage to East-India, Terry indicates that in 1622, following his travels to India, he presented ‘a description of that empire’ to the Prince of Wales (p. iv; page numbers refer to the 1777 edition). The 1655 publication appears to be an expanded edition of the 1622 work. Its full title is A voyage to East India; wherein some things are taken notice of, in our passage thither, but many more in our abode here, within that rich and most spacious empire of the Great Mogul, mixt with some parallel observations and inferences upon the story, to profit as well as delight the reader. The 1777 reprint comprises some 513 pages. It includes an introduction of 12 pages, five copper plates (drawings) as well as five pages of poetry. The first 55 pages deal with Terry’s observations and experiences prior to arriving in India. The remainder of the book is divided into 31 sections. In the last, ‘The Corollarie and Conclusions’, Terry endeavours to interpret his experiences to ‘Christian England’ and strives to awaken there a deeper understanding of its own faith, as well as encouraging deeper devotion and more meaningful practices. A large percentage of the text is devoted to this purpose. Each of the 30 sections describes some aspect of life in the subcontinent. The first identifies the 37 provinces under Mughal control, together with anything of note relating to them. The following sections range over a variety of topics, including: soil and crops; merchandise; army ‘animals’; the nature of the army, its ammunition and weapons; buildings and villages; diet; social customs; doctors and health; religion; marriage and burial customs. Several sections are devoted to Hindus and their beliefs. In Sections 22-29, Terry focuses on aspects of the Mughal court and its practices. In Section 30, he comments on the Jesuit mission in India. While Terry wrote out of his personal experience, it is also obvious that he had some prior understanding of Islam. Furthermore, it appears he was indebted to one Thomas Coryate (Coriat, Cordyte) for some of his information, at least; not everything he wrote was gained from direct personal observation. In addition, it seems he had access to the ‘Moghul’s own records’ (p. 74). He did not seek ‘to enlarge myself in the discovery of the Mahometan religion, because that hath been done by so many hands already’ (p. 244). Nevertheless, while he was in India, he had conversations with Muslims about their faith (see p. 257), and he records some of these conversations and several stories that he heard. However, he tends to use ‘church’ and ‘chapel’ to refer to both Hindu temples and



edward terry

225

Muslim mosques (see p. 82). He is also inclined to use the term ‘priest’ to refer to leaders at mosques. Throughout the work there are numerous quotations in Latin with both allusions and, on occasions, extensive references to classical literature and the Bible (see pp. 242-3). Terry may well have been influenced by Reformation ideas and ideals (see p. vii). With regard to the Bible, he not only refers to incidents and quotes many verses, but his language and expressions often reflect extensive biblical knowledge. He does not just discuss Hinduism and Islam; sometimes his comments about Christians in India are quite critical. For example, he avers that the Armenian Christians are winemakers whose wine is ‘tasted too much by many Christians that come thither, as by those too that make it’ (p. 122). He adds that ‘they (referring to both those in India and those who have come to India) do enough to make Christianity itself evil spoken of, as a religion that deserves more to be abhorred, than embraced’ (p. 240). With respect to Terry’s comments on, and descriptions of, Islam, the following examples have been chosen from three sections in which the primary focus is the practice of Islam: Section 14 headed, ‘of the most excellent Moralities which are to be observed amongst the People of those Nations’; Section 15 ‘of their Religion, their Priests, their devotion, their Churches’; and Section 16 ‘of their Votaries, and of the voluntary and sharp Penances that People undergo; of their Lent and of their fasts and feasts’. Throughout Section 14, Terry comments that of ‘those things which are spiritually good, there is nothing which may more challenge a due and deserved commendation, than those things which are morally and materially so’ (p. 231). At the same time he goes into lengthy sections upbraiding Christians. He notices the temperance of the ‘Mahometans’, that they would ‘rather choose to die . . . than eat or drink anything their law forbids them’ (p. 232). He also considers that the ‘great exemplary care they manifest in their piety to their parents’ deserves ‘a most high commendation’ (pp. 232-3). And he commends them also for their ‘lack of pride in new fashions’ (pp. 34-5). However, Terry notes that since most of the ‘Mahometans’ are conquerors, they tend to be idle and lazy, leaving the heathen (‘Hindoos’), who, he observes, are most industrious, to do the work (p. 236). However, he also discovers that, in business, ‘to deceive’ is considered a trait of Christians which, he admits, ‘is a ­horrible truth’ (p. 237). This grieves him, for he considers such behaviour to be a blasphemy against God. Indeed, he suggests that the heathen of India do,

226

edward terry

indeed, exceed Christians in respect to moral honesty (p. 238). He also considers it ‘most sad and horrible, a scandal’ that the Christian religion is considered a ‘Devil religion’; and that it is said that ‘Christian much drunk, Christian much do wrong, much beat, much abuse others’ (p. 239). This must reflect how Indian Muslims experienced, perceived and evaluated Christians. In Section 15, Terry’s comments about ‘Mahomet’ point to his previous understanding of the prophet of Islam. He considers him ‘the ringleader’, ‘the chief founder’, who was filled ‘with all subtilty and craft’. He mentions ‘Sergivus’, whom he describes as a ‘Christian by profession, but an heretical Nestorian Monk’, and he considers that it was with his help, and that of Abdalla, a Jew, that ‘Mahomet . . . composed a religion, that hath nothing in it, or that favours of nothing so much, as of rude ignorance, and most palpable imposture; it being a monster of many heads, a most damnable mixture of horrid impieties’ (p. 243). Further, he writes: ‘it hath will-worship for its foundation, fables and lyes for its support and a groundless presumption for its superstructure’ (p. 244). Regarding the Qur’an (‘Alcoran’), Terry regards it to be ‘a fardle [collection or bundle] of foolish impossibilities, fit to be received by none but fools and mad-men’ (p. 244). He also considers it a ‘groundless presumption’ that misleads the people ‘into a careless security’ of ‘esteeming themselves the only true believers of the world, and none true believers but themselves’ (p. 245). He later adds: ‘Thus Mahomet cites scripture to do more mischief by it’ (p. 246). However, he also asserts: ‘Yet it cannot be denied, but that there are some things in the precepts which Mahomet hath prescribed to be received and observed by his followers, that are good, laid down in eight commandments’ (p. 245). He goes on to detail these. Terry describes Mullahs (‘Moolaas’) as ‘more distinguished from the rest of the Mahometans by their beards (which they wear long) than by any other of their habits’ (p. 247). He also speaks about ‘another sort of priests’ who are of a higher order and rank but live in retirement and are ‘most highly reverenced’, identifying them as the ‘Seayds’ ‘who derive themselves from Mahomet’ (p. 248). Terry considers mosques as ‘fair’, built of ‘marble or coarser stone’, and giving evidence of ‘excellent workmanship both in vaults and arches’. He notes they are long and narrow on a north-south axis, with the broadside towards the east; and he also comments that this is the way Muslims ‘lay up the bodies of their dead’ (p. 248). He also notes the turrets on the four corners of the mosques and indicates their use for the call of the ‘adhzan’,



edward terry

227

which is done in Arabic as ‘loud as they can possibly speak’; and he comments that this call ‘puts the most devout in mind of the hours of their devotion; those priests being exceedingly zealous to promote the cause, and to keep up the honour of their Mahomet’ (p. 249). Terry notes approvingly that ‘there is not one among the Mahometans (of any understanding) which at any time mentions the name of our blessed Saviour, called there Hazaret Eesa, the Lord Christ, but he makes mention of it with high reverence and respect’ (p. 260). In Section 16, ‘of their votaries; where of the voluntary and sharp penances that people undergo; of their lent, and of their fast and feast’, it is at times unclear whether Terry is speaking of Islamic practices or Hindu ones. In his references to ‘dervishes’, there may well have been little distinction between the practices of those adhering to Islam and those adhering to Hinduism at the time. Although he gives the detail

Illustration 4. The signet of the Emperor Jahāngīr, bearing the names of Mughal emperors from 1. Tīmūr to 9. Jahāngīr, from Edward Terry, A voyage to East India, 1655, p. 365

228

edward terry

of some practices, at the same time he writes about the ‘foolishness’ of them. It would seem that Terry did not grasp that ‘Ramjan’ (Ramaḍān) was a moveable fast. He is not aware that it is related to the moon, and when he was in India it occurred during September. He goes into some detail describing the first day of the fast, what appears to be Shab-e-Barat (laylat al-barāʿa), and also the ending of ʿĪd al-fiṭr. At the end of this section he acknowledges the ‘works of charity . . . the building of sarraes (sarais), making wells and tanks (for water)’, together with maintaining servants to clean the roadways, and also the custom of offering water to travellers (p. 272). In the sections on the Mughal court, Terry describes how Islamic principles are worked out in the life of a court where the ruler considers himself to be a ‘devout Muslim’. While Terry’s writing is much-focused on his readers, and his goal is to stir them into greater Christian devotion, there is much that can be learned here about Islam and its practices in the sub-continent in the 17th century – well before there was significant European impact upon the country. Nevertheless, his comments on Islam would have confirmed for many the attitudes and prejudices they already held. Significance Terry writes primarily out of personal experiences during his two-year stay in India. It is his descriptions that constitute a significant contribution to understanding aspects of contemporary relations between Christians and Muslims. He comments from the perspective of a clergyman who regards Christianity as the sole and absolute truth. While that means that he speaks of the ‘falsehood’, ‘(spiritual) darkness’, ‘ignorance’, ‘miserable delusion’ and the ‘seduced’ of both Islam and Hinduism, he also allows what he sees to challenge his own faith and devotion and that of his Christian compatriots. In fact, the final section of his work is basically a challenge to his readers to commit to what he understands as a more devoted Christian way of life based on his observations of the ‘spiritual life’ of the ‘Mahometans’ and the ‘pagans’. For example: ‘Yet for the inhabitants there, a man may clearly see the law of nature to be so engraved upon the hearts of very many, both Pagans and Mahometans; as that it may make multitudes, who profess themselves Christians, (if they would but turn their eyes inward) extremely to wonder how it comes to be so much worn out of theirs’ (p. xi). Terry is possibly the first English clergyman to write about Islam in the Indian sub-continent. Also, it is noteworthy that he encountered



edward terry

229

both ‘living Islam and Hinduism’ in the context of India where ‘every one there hath liberty to profess his own religion freely, and if he please may argue against theirs, without fear of an inquisition . . .’ (p. 253). There was much that was very different from the England that he knew. While writing about Islam, his primary purpose was not to offer a critique, though there are times when he does so from his perspective; neither was his purpose to write a theological treatise or engage in apologetics. Primarily, his writing is descriptive and illustrative, though he takes what he sees to challenge his own and his fellow country people’s Christian practices. Publications Edward Terry, A voyage to East-India. Wherein some things are taken notice of in our passage thither, but many more in our abode there, within that rich and most spacious empire of the Great Mogol. Mix’t with some parallel observations and inferences upon the storie, to profit as well as delight the reader, London: Printed by T.W. for J. Martin, and J. Allestrye, at the Bell in St. Pauls Chutch-Yard [sic], 1655; Wing T782 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Edward Terry, Scheeps-Togt van Edward Terry Capellaan van den Ambassadeur Thomas Roe, na Oost-Indien; met een vloot van 5 scheepen. gedaan in het jaar 1615: verhalende een zee-slag tussen de Engelsse en een Portugysse Kraak, omtrent het eyland Gazidia, ook de gelegenheyd deses eylands met den gods-dienst, aart, zeeden en kleeding deser volkeren: mitsgaders een nette en naauw-keurige beschrijving van de staten van den Mogol, op wat wijse des selfs land in provincien verdeelt, en aan andere land-palen is grensende, met de hoofd-stad van yeder landschap, en de voornaamste rivieren: als mede de gods-dienst en zeeden der mahometanen en heydenen, ‘t verbranden hunner wijven met de mannen, onthouding van spijsen, verhuysing der zielen en andere zeldsaamheeden, Leiden, 1707 (Dutch trans.); Belg. 324 l (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Edward Terry, A voyage to East India; wherein some things are taken notice of, in our passage thither, but many more in our abode here, within that rich and most spacious empire of the Great Mogul, mixt with some parallel observations and inferences upon the story, to profit as well as delight the reader, reprinted from the edition of 1655, with copper-plates observed by Edward Terry, London: J. Wilkie, 1777; ESTC T175871 (digitalised version available through ECCO)

230

edward terry

S. Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, Glasgow, 1905, vol. 9, pp. 1-54 (extracts) Studies R.C. Prasad, Early English travellers in India, Delhi, 1980 E. Chatterton, A history of the Church of England in India. Since the early days of the East India Company, London, 1924; http://anglican history.org/india/chatterton1924/01.html W. Foster (ed.), Early travels in India, 1583-1619, India, 1921 Ruth J. Nicholls

Baṛī Ṣaḥib bint Muḥammad Quṭb Shāh Hājī Baṛī Ṣaḥib wālida-yi Alī ʿĀdil Shāh; Khadīja Sulṭāna Date of Birth Before about 1617 Place of Birth Golconda sultanate, India Date of Death 1668 Place of Death Mokha

Biography

As the daughter of Sultan Muḥammad Quṭb Shāh of Golconda and the sister or half-sister of his successor, Baṛī Ṣaḥib entered the chronicles in 1633, at the time of her betrothal to Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh of the neighbouring sultanate of Bijapur. Piecing together the information available about her from contemporary chronicles, the Muḥammad nāma written at the court of Bijapur and the Ḥadīqat al-salāṭīn written at the court of Golconda, and the records of the English East India Company and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), as well as various other snippets of documentation, her biography may be constructed as follows. There is no mention of her before 1633, making it difficult to even establish her name. Baṛī Ṣaḥib, meaning grande dame or ‘first lady’ in Deccani Urdu, would appear to be a title rather than a given name, and had also been the form of address for her husband’s grandmother. The historian H.K. Sherwani suggests that her original name was Khadīja Sulṭāna, although Gajanan Mehendale has not found any evidence of this. In his letters, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb addressed her as Baṛī Ṣaḥiba when not addressing her as her brother’s sister. Her seal, however, says Baṛī Ṣaḥib, with a feminine ending only for the adjective and not for the noun. As early as 1635-6 she seems to have played a role in the politics of Bijapur during the overthrow of the powerful minister Khavāṣṣ Khān and his entourage. She had her own source of income from the revenues of a coastal province that included the Dutch factory at Vengurla. After the death of her husband in 1656, she became the regent for ʿAlī, the underage successor to the throne, to whom her biological relation is unclear, even though she refers to him as her ‘reigning son’ and ‘apple of my eye’ in one of her letters to the Dutch. Rumours circulated that Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh had been impotent and that the boy was the son of Baṛī Ṣaḥib

232

baṛī ṣaḥib bint muḥammad quṭb shāh

by a mahout (elephant goader). The official version appears to have been that ʿAlī was the son of Muḥammad by a mistress and had been adopted by Baṛī Ṣaḥib. Combining Baṛī Ṣaḥib’s apparent attachment to the boy and the stark differences in physical appearance between Muḥammad and his successor (as known from descriptions and miniature paintings), it can be suggested that ʿAlī was her biological son, but by a different father. It was also rumoured that she had Muḥammad killed after a protracted illness (which was creating unrest in the interior and at the frontiers) in order to bring ʿAlī to the throne. During her regency, she had contact with both the Portuguese in Goa and the Dutch in Vengurla. In 1659, it seemed she would finally fulfil the alliance that her late husband had established with the Dutch against the Portuguese by sending troops. But although the threat to Goa looked extremely serious for a while, with the Dutch blocking the way to the sea and the Bijapuris blocking the land-side, the fall of Goa was averted through a Portuguese financial and diplomatic offensive and the factional struggle at the court of Bijapur. In or just before 1661, her regency ended when ʿAlī was old enough to take the administration into his own hands, and Baṛī Ṣaḥib decided to go on ḥajj. For this purpose, she requested the Dutch to provide sea transportation to the farthest point that the Ottomans allowed them into the Red Sea, the trading town of Mokha in the Yemen, from where she intended to travel on to Mecca by herself. This request was fulfilled and in the course of the ensuing interaction she wrote a number of letters to VOC officials, which are still extant. There is also a colourful description of her boarding the Dutch ship at Vengurla by Johan Nieuhoff, which among other things notes how she maintained pardah (screening from view) in this partly European setting. The letters in the VOC archives appear to be all that is left of her writing, but we have a few more indications of a rich intellectual life. Nieuhoff, who witnessed her dictating letters in various languages while at Vengurla, notes her intelligence. Moreover, two manuscript volumes bearing her seal, indicating that they were once part of her library, survive in the National Museum in Delhi. They contain the texts of the celebrated mirror for princes in the form of animal tales, Kalīla wa-Dimna, and al-Qazwīnī’s cosmography, the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt (‘Wonders of creation’), along with parts of al-Ṣūfī’s work on astronomy, the Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib (‘Book of the fixed stars’).



baṛī ṣaḥib bint muḥammad quṭb shāh

233

She returned from the Ḥijāz in 1663 on an Indian ship, and styled herself ḥājī (one who has completed the ḥajj), as is evidenced by the inscription on a copper bowl formerly in the Stuart Welch collection. That same year, she decided to go on a pilgrimage to the Shīʿī holy places around Iran, and had a ship prepared for her by Portuguese private shipowners, but the VOC again provided two crew-members. Having arrived at the Persian court in Isfahan, she requested the VOC to transfer money to her from her son, and this request was granted (amidst hopes that she would be a diplomatic support for the Dutch at the Safavid court), but it is not clear that her son ultimately released the money. In the years after her stay in Isfahan, she appears to have travelled around the Persian Gulf and Red Sea region. In late 1668, English and Dutch reports referred to her death at Mokha. The Dutch report added that she died of sorrow, perhaps, as Mehendale suggests, because she had in effect been exiled from Bijapur.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. Nieuhoff, Zee en lant-reize, door verscheide gewesten van Oostindien, Amsterdam, 1682, p. 77 Muḥammad Ẓuhūr bin Ẓuhūrī, Muḥammad Nāmah [between 1641 and c. 1650], in MS Chandigarh, Punjab State Archives – Persian MS M/727, fols 147-154v (1781) Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passerende daer ter plaetse als over geheel Nederlandts-India, The Hague, 1887-1930, 1661: pp. 5, 97, 159, 193-4, 211, 216, 409, 439, 442-3; 1663: pp. 305-6, 335, 545, 548; 1664: pp. 320, 353, 373, 422; 1665: pp. 266, 321 B.D. Verma, ‘History in Muhammad Nama’, Śīvajī-Nibandhāvalī 2 (1930) 71-134, pp. 81-8, 96 (summary trans. of Muḥammad Nāmah) B.G. Paranjpe (ed.), English records on Shivaji, part 4: 1659-1682, Pune, 1931, vol. 1, pp. 1-4, 117 Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad bin ʿAbd Allāh Saʿīdī, Ḥadīqat al-salāṭīn, [1644] ed. Sayyid Ali Asghar Bilgrami, Hyderabad, 1961, pp. 137-42, 163-4 Dutch caption on a miniature painting of Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 44 (1996) 255-6 (published in list of new acquisitions) Secondary A. Bankar, ‘A note on the seal of Bari Sahiba’, Journal of Oriental Numismatic Society (forthcoming)

234

baṛī ṣaḥib bint muḥammad quṭb shāh

N.N. Haidar, ‘Manuscript of the ʿAjāʾīb al-makhlūqāt (‘Wonders of creation’) from the Library of Bari Sahib’, in N.N. Haidar and M. Sardar (eds), Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700. Opulence and fantasy, New York, 2015, pp. 227-8 (Metropolitan Museum exhibition catalogue) G.B. Mehendale, Shivaji. His life and times, Pune, 2013, pp. 161-2 L. Weinstein, ‘Variations on a Persian theme. Adaptation and innovation in early manuscripts from Golconda’, New York, 2011 (PhD Diss. Columbia University), p. 91 G. Kruijtzer, Xenophobia in seventeenth-century India, Leiden, 2009, pp. 49-50, 66, 69, 76, 82-3, 94, 101, 164-5, 169 G.B. Mehendale, ‘Baḍī Sāhebīṇ’, Śrī Rājā Śivchatrapatī, Pune, 1999, vol. 1, pt. 2, Appendix 56, pp. 1192-206 R.M. Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur 1300-1700. Social roles of Sufis in medieval India, Prince­ton NJ, 1978, p. 182 H.K. Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, Hyderabad, 1974, p. 385, and genealogical tree at the back M.A. Nayeem, External relations of the Bijapur Kingdom (1489-1686 A.D.). A study in diplomatic history, Hyderabad, 1974, p. 256

Illustration 5. View of Mokha from Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historiael, 1616 (image by Adriaen Matham)



baṛī ṣaḥib bint muḥammad quṭb shāh

235

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Three letters to the VOC Governor General in Batavia Date 25 February 1661; 26 March 1661; 25 May 1663 Original Language Persian Description The three letters written by Baṛī Ṣaḥib to the Dutch governor general, each of which takes up about one page in the Dagh-register edition, appear to be her only extant writings, although it is possible that there are also letters by her in the archives of the Portuguese Estado da Índia in Lisbon or Goa, but none are included in the various listings of materials from these archives (personal communication from Jorge Flores). They were originally written in Persian but have survived only in Dutch translation. All three were written in relation to Baṛī Ṣaḥib’s pilgrimage to Mecca in the early 1660s, though it is not clear which calendar she was using; it does not appear to be consistent with either hijrī, faslī or shuhur san. In the first letter, she mentions her desire to sail for Mokha ‘out of devotion’, and acknowledges the various Dutchmen who are making her journey possible, praising the Dutch character in general. She informs the governor general that her son has been apprised of the services provided by the Dutch, and is prepared to assist them in their trade. She also sends some gifts. The second letter was written upon her arrival in Mokha after a 29-day journey by sea, and is less formal. It is very interesting for what is not mentioned about a transgression of the boundaries between Christianity and Islam. Upon landing at Mokha there was an incident, which is also recorded in the VOC archives, in which two members of the crew (the Dutch second mate and an English sailor) jumped ship and converted to Islam. The captain made a great fuss about this, which resulted in some VOC officers, along with the sails and rudder of their ship, being taken into custody by some people at Mokha. In response, the captain went to the ruler, the Zaydī imām, to request the return of the two crew members as well as the release of the ship and the officers. In the meantime, the first mate managed to get onto the ship, having captured the rudder of a ‘Moorish’ ship, and sailed away leaving the captain and some other Dutchmen ashore. In her letter, Baṛī Ṣaḥib comments on the incident as follows: ‘Two of yours have absconded here in Mokha. Because

236

baṛī ṣaḥib bint muḥammad quṭb shāh

of this, the captain has been to see the governor of the town in order to have them tracked with full application and diligence, though he has not got them back. But the captain does not have a hair on his head that is guilty of this, nor any of the crew. They are further being taken care of in their needs by me.’ Nieuhoff alleges that the captain also joined Baṛī Ṣaḥib’s entourage and converted to Islam, while the ship’s bookkeeper later maintained that the captain died while trying to make his way back to India on a Mughal ship. Whichever the case, while the topic of conversion features prominently in the Dutch versions of this incident, it remains unstated in Baṛī Ṣaḥib’s communication to the Dutch about the fate of the absconders and the captain. The third letter was written after her return to the sultanate of Bijapur as a note of thanks, and was again accompanied by gifts. The two extant manuscript copies of the translation of this letter have a depiction of Baṛī Ṣaḥib’s seal with a translation of the text of the seal. Significance These letters shed light on Christian-Muslim relations in South Asia in the 17th century not only because of the overall context, namely a ‘Christian’ semi-state enterprise engaging with a ‘Muslim’ state to facilitate an act of devotion, but also in their wording. Baṛī Ṣaḥib expresses her devotion to Islam quite naturally at various points in the letters, which in one place results in the translator adding an explanatory note about the significance of the Kaʿba, drawing this monument into a sphere of Dutch familiarity by noting its link to Abraham. The letters also make clear that Baṛī Ṣaḥib was well aware of the mutual dependence of the European sea-powers and the states based in the interior of South Asia. Publications MS Jakarta, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia – Hoge Regering Batavia inv. no. 2461: fols 344-6 (25 February 1661; Dutch trans. of the first letter) MS Jakarta, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia – Hoge Regering Batavia inv. no. 2462: fols 795-7 (26 March 1661; Dutch trans. of the second letter) MS Jakarta, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia – Hoge Regering Batavia inv. no. 2464: fols 585-6 (25 May 1663; Dutch trans. of the third letter)



baṛī ṣaḥib bint muḥammad quṭb shāh

237

MS The Hague, Nationaal Archief – VOC inv. no. 1241, fol. 335 (25 May 1663; Dutch trans. of the third letter) Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia, 1661: pp. 193-4, 442-3; 1663: p. 548 Studies Kruijtzer, Xenophobia in seventeenth-century India, pp. 49-50 (with reproduction of the translated seal), 66, 69, 76, 82-3, 94, 101, 164-5, 169 Gijs Kruijtzer

François Bernier Date of Birth 1620 Place of Birth Joué-Étiau, region of Anjou, France Date of Death 22 September 1688 Place of Death Paris, France

Biography

Born in Anjou in 1620, François Bernier went to Paris, where in the 1640s he was introduced into the most erudite circles and associated with the neo-Epicurean philosopher Pierre Gassendi. From 1648 to 1650, Bernier followed François Boysson, Seigneur de Merveilles, to Poland, Germany, Italy and maybe the Levant. Back in France in 1650, Bernier joined Gassendi in Toulon, becoming his secretary and assisting him in his experiments on vacuum. He also participated in the quarrel between Gassendi and Jean-Baptiste Morin, contributing two satirical pieces in Latin (1651‐3). He spent the spring and summer of 1652 in Montpellier, where he became a doctor of medicine. He returned to Paris with Gassendi in 1653, and left France shortly after Gassendi’s death on 24 October 1655 in order to travel to the Orient. Bernier began by visiting Egypt and Palestine before crossing the Red Sea to Mokha (Yemen), where he thought he would embark for Ethiopia. As alarming rumours reached him, he decided to embark for India instead. He arrived at Surat in early 1659 and witnessed the fierce battle for succession between the sons of Shāh Jahān. In spring 1659, he first met Dara Shikoh, then in full flight, before joining the court of Aurangzeb in Delhi, where as a doctor he was well received. He entered the service of Danishmand Khan and learnt enough Persian to teach European science and philosophy, including Descartes and Gassendi, to his learned master. Bernier followed the court to Kashmir, visited Agra, Benares and Patna with Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, and travelled to Bangalore and Golconda. While in India, Bernier stayed in contact with French learned circles; between 1661 and 1669, he received seven letters from Jean Chapelain, known as a literary critic, and must also have received books. He also wrote to friends in France, and two letters dated 1660 to M. de M ­ erveilles, narrating the war of succession, were published by Melchisédech Thévenot in the first volume of his Relations de divers



françois bernier

239

voyages curieux (Paris, 1663). In March 1668, shortly before heading back to France via Persia and Constantinople, Bernier wrote Mémoire sur l’établissement du commerce dans les Indes for the Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales (French East India Company). He arrived back in Toulon in 1669. After an absence of 13 years, Bernier published a travel account in letter form in 1670-1. His Voyages de François Bernier was a publishing success, and English and German translations followed one year after the first French edition. Bernier then focused on Parisian life and on philosophy. From 1674 to 1684, he published the three increasingly complete versions of his Abrégé de la philosophie de Gassendi, as well as some Doutes. He travelled to England in 1685 and was received by the Royal Society of London. He frequented the scientific and literary salon of Madame de la Sablière, to whom he taught physics. He also published a number of articles in the Journal des Sçavans in 1684 and 1688, including a piece about human classification based on skin colour. He died in Paris on 22 September 1688.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary François Bernier, ‘Arrêt burlesque. Requeste des maistres es arts’ (MS Paris, BNF – Rp.13709 [1671]), in S. Murr (ed.), Bernier et les gassendistes, Paris, 1992 (special issue of Corpus 20/21), pp. 231-9 François Bernier, ‘Mémoire pour l’établissement du commerce dans les Indes’, 19 March 1668, to Colbert (MS Paris, Centre d’Accueil et de Recherche des Archives Nationales – Col. C2.62, fols 13-25) François Bernier, ‘Epitaphe persane’, in Samuel Sorbière, Correspondance (MS Paris, BNF – la. 10352) François Bernier, Histoire de la derniere révolution des états du Grand Mogol followed by Suite des mémoires du Sieur Bernier, 4 vols, Paris, 1670-1 François Bernier, Doutes de Mr. Bernier, Paris, 1681 (repr. in Abrégé, Lyon, 1684, vol. 2, pp. 370-480) François Bernier, Abrégé de la philosophie de Gassendi, 7 vols, Lyon: Anisson, Posuel and Rigaud, 1684 [François Bernier], ‘Nouvelle division de la Terre, par les differentes espèces ou races d’hommes qui l’habitent, envoyée par un fameux voyageur à M. l’Abbé de la Chambre, à peu près en ces termes’, Journal des Sçavans (Paris, 24 April 1684) 133-40 François Bernier, ‘Lettre de M. Bernier sur le caffé’, in Philippe Sylvestre Dufour, Traitez nouveaux et curieux du café, du thé et du chocolatte, Lyon, 1685, 207-16

240

françois bernier

François Bernier, Traité du libre et du volontaire, Amsterdam, 1685 François Bernier, ‘Introduction à la lecture de Confucius’, Journal des Sçavans (Paris, 7 June 1688) 15-22 François Bernier, ‘Extraits de diverses pièces envoyées pour étreines’, Journal des Sçavans (Paris, 7 June 1688) 23-8 François Bernier, ‘Epitaphe’ etc., Journal des Sçavans (Paris, 14 June 1688) 28-31 Jean-Baptiste Chapelain, ‘Lettres inédites’, in L. de Lens (ed.), Les correspondants de François Bernier, Angers, 1872 Jean-Baptiste Chapelain, Lettres, ed. T. de Larroque, Paris, 1880-3, vol. 2, pp. 220, 663 Secondary M. Harrigan, ‘Seventeenth-century French travellers and the encounter with Indian histories’, French History 28 (2014) 1-22 I. Moreau, ‘François Bernier. Philosophers’ fictions / travellers’ visions’, in E. Gilby and P. White (eds), Method and variation. Narrative in early modern French thought, Oxford, 2013, 89-101 J.-P. Rubiés, ‘Race, climate and civilization in the works of François Bernier’, in M. Fourcade and I.G. Zupanov (eds), L’Inde des Lumières. Discours, histoire, savoirs (XVIIe-XIXe siècle), Paris, 2013, 53-78 I. Moreau, ‘Fictions across disciplines in seventeenth-century France’, in R. Scholar and A. Tadié (eds), Fiction and the frontiers of knowledge in Europe, 1500-1800, Farnham, Surrey, 2010, 53-69 N. Dew, Orientalism in Louis XIV’s France, Oxford, 2009 I. Moreau, ‘L’araignée dans sa toile. Mise en images de l’âme du monde de François Bernier et Pierre Bayle à l’Encyclopédie’, in I. Moreau (ed.), Les Lumières en mouvement. La circulation des idées au XVIIIe siècle, Lyon, 2009, 199-228 I. Moreau, art. ‘François Bernier’, in L. Foisneau (ed.), The dictionary of seventeenth-century French philosophers, New York, 2008 F. Tinguely, ‘Introduction’, in F. Tinguely, A. Paschoud and C.-A. Chamay (eds), Un libertin dans l’Inde moghole. Les voyages de François Bernier (16561669), Paris, 2008, 7-34 M. Harrigan, Veiled encounters. Representing the Orient in 17th-century French travel literature, Amsterdam, 2008 F. Tinguely, ‘Un paradis sans miracles. Le Cachemire de François Bernier’, Etudes de Lettres (2006/3) 55-69 P.H. Boulle, ‘François Bernier and the origins of the modern concept of race’, in S. Peabody and T. Stovall (eds), The color of liberty. Histories of race in France, Durham NC, 2003



françois bernier

241

J. Nelson, ‘A new division of the earth by François Bernier’, History Workshop Journal 51 (2001) 247-50 S. Stuurman, ‘François Bernier and the invention of racial classification’, History Workshop Journal 50 (2000) 1-21 P. Burke, ‘The philosopher as traveler. Bernier’s Orient’, in J. Elsner and J.-P. Rubiés (eds), Voyages and vision. Towards a cultural history of travel, London, 1999, 124-37 J.-C. Darmon, ‘Prudence politique et droit de propriété privée selon Bernier. Pour une analyse utilitariste de la décadence des États du Grand Mogol’, Libertinage et Philosophie au XVIIe Siècle 3 (1999) 123-42 S.J. Tambiah, ‘What did Bernier actually say? Profiling the Mughal Empire’, Contributions to Indian Sociology 32 (1998) 361-86 S. Murr (ed.), Gassendi et l’Europe (1592-1792), Paris, 1997 G.J. Ames, Colbert, mercantilism, and the French quest for Asian trade, DeKalb IL, 1996 G.J. Ames, ‘François Bernier and the Mughal Empire. French views on northern India in the 1660s’, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society 20 (1994) 27-35 T.M. Lennon, ‘Bernier’, in J.-P. Schobinger (ed.), Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2/1. Frankreich und Niederlände, Basel, 1993, 242-50 P. Laude, ‘François Bernier face à l’Inde. réflexions sur la “Lettre à M. Chapelain” de 1668’, Francographies. Bulletin de la Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d’Amérique 1 (1993) 113-27 S. Murr (ed.), Bernier et les Gassendistes, Paris, 1992 (special issue of Corpus 20/21) S. Murr, ‘Le politique “au Mogol” selon Bernier. Appareil conceptuel, rhétorique stratégique, philosophie morale’, Purusartha 13 (1990) 239-311 P.F. Mugnal, ‘Ricerche su François Bernier filosofo e viaggiatore (1620-88)’, Studi Filosofici 7 (1984) 53-115 R. Pintard, Le libertinage érudit, Paris, 1943 (repr. Geneva, 2000), pp. 328-9, 384-7, 409-12, 424, 429, 571-2 L. de Lens, ‘Documents inédits ou perdus sur François Bernier’, in Mémoires de la Société Nationale d’Agriculture [. . .] du Maine et Loire, Angers, 1873, 18-34 L. de Lens, Les correspondants de François Bernier pendant son voyage dans l’Inde. Lettres inédites de Chapelain, Angers, 1872

242

françois bernier

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Voyages de François Bernier, ‘François Bernier’s travels’ Voyage dans les états du Grand Mogol, ‘Travels in the realm of the Great Mughal’ Date 1670-1 Original Language French Description The Voyages de François Bernier (the title given to the 1699 Amsterdam edition; the original title begins Histoire de la derniere revolution des états du Grand Mogol; evenemens particuliers, 1670, and Suite des Memoires du Sr Bernier sur l’Empire du grand Mogol, 1671, ‘The history of the late revolution in the realm of the Great Mughal, particular events, 1670, and The collected memoirs of Mr Bernier on the empire of the Great Mughal, 1671’) first appeared in 1670-1, in four volumes of 278, 298, 388 and 294 pages respectively. The entire set was rapidly pirated at The Hague (1671-2), and translated into English (London, 1671-2), Dutch (Amsterdam, 1672), German (Frankfurt, 1672-3) and Italian (Milan, 1675). The French edition was later republished as Voyages de François Bernier, in 2 volumes of 320 and 358 pages respectively, in Amsterdam in 1699, and reissued in 1709-10, 1711 and 1723-4. For convenience, references here will be given to the most recent (2008) singlevolume critical edition (Tinguely, Paschoud and Chamay, Un libertin dans l’Inde moghole), which reproduces the original 1670-1 edition, the only one published under Bernier’s supervision. The Voyages as a whole comprises a series of episodes in the form of letters written to various individuals back in France (including the king and his minster Colbert) situated in a historical substratum, and includes a substantial number of economic and political observations, as well as descriptions of mores and customs, including religious beliefs and practices. Even though the work is not primarily concerned with relations with the Islamic world, it nonetheless contains a number of explicit and implicit references to Islam. Several incidental remarks scattered throughout the work relate to Islam. For example, Bernier describes how on his outward journey he is not allowed to disembark at Jeddah, the principal gateway to Mecca (p. 41; see also pp. 127, 130, 195, 304 for mentions of pilgrimages to



françois bernier

243

Mecca). He mentions the difference between the Shīʿī Islam of the Persians and the Sunnī Islam of the Ottomans, even if there is some confusion between the origins of Sunnī Islam and the origins of the Ottomans (p. 48; see also pp. 190, 204-6; Sufism is mentioned on pp. 321, 341-3, 358). The Ethiopian Embassy to the Mughal Court is worth noting because it gives him the opportunity to reflect on proceedings he deems unworthy of a Christian ambassador and a Christian king, which lead him to think Christianity in Ethiopia must be very odd indeed, because it ‘savours much of Mahumetanisme’ (pp. 146-51). In addition, mention of Christian-Muslim relations can be found in the discussion of the Mughal emperors’s attitude towards religion. Hence, Dara is portrayed as being tolerant towards all confessions (pp. 46-7: Dara is said in private to be ‘Heathen with the heathen, and Christian with the Christians’), and mention is made of his keen listening to the Jesuit Father Buzée. Yet Bernier seems to side with those who thought that Dara was in fact ‘void of all religion’ and that whatever he pretended, it was ‘only for curiosity, or, as others say, out of policy’ (p. 47; see also pp. 61, 123-5). Of equal interest is the discussion of Jahāngīr’s tolerance towards Christians (pp. 177-8), in contrast to his son Shāh Jahān’s persecution of them in 1632-3 (pp. 178-9). Bernier also describes how the Jesuits of Agra, who were introduced and welcomed by Akbar and his son Jahāngīr, thought Jahāngīr would convert to Christianity, but were deceived and disappointed. Bernier tellingly offers a Machiavellian interpretation of the court politics behind this appearance of religious sympathy, and implies that Akbar and Jahāngīr are lacking in true religious feeling (pp. 283-5; see p. 284 for the fake ordeal organised by Jahāngīr: a Christian priest – probably Father Francesco Corsi – and a Mullah are invited to martyrdom to prove which religion is better). He also suggests that the Christian missions are deluded when they think they will convert Muslims (pp. 285-7), although they may obtain some results with ‘heathens’. Bernier also refers to the exchange of scientific and religious knowledge at court, mentioning his teaching of European sciences and philosophies, including Descartes and Gassendi, to Danishmand Khan, his master, and how they both became involved in discussions with a learned Hindu about his religion (p. 324). Significance The Voyages was one of the most successful travel accounts from this period, its success owing a lot to Bernier’s lively style and personality. He was not a merchant, diplomat or missionary, but a doctor and

244

françois bernier

philosopher, whose Epicurean criticism (following Gassendi) of the impostures of an Indian clergy who exploited people’s credulity led to his being considered a strongly libertine spirit. His attitude towards Islam is not simple. There are passing references in the Voyages, but when he concentrates on religious phenomena in his ‘Letter to Chapelain’ he chooses to depict only Hindu beliefs and philosophy, as if Islam was sufficiently familiar to the European reader. It has been argued that the whole basis of this particular letter was ‘the distinction between the Muslim Mughals and the Hindu populace’ (Dew, Orientalism, p. 136). Indeed, far from being an idealised portrayal of a three-way colloquy between Muslim, Christian and Hindu, the letter displays a series of dichotomies between rationality and foolishness, critical philosophy and sheer superstition, where the Muslim and the Christian are on one side and the Hindu on the other. Bernier and the Muslim share curiosity about Hinduism, which is at first presented as a valid ethnographic object for consideration, but is then dismissed as a series of superstitious beliefs and brutish practices that the Brahmins promote to assert their domination over the people. Both the Muslim and the Christian in the letter ‘folklorise’ the culture of the governed Hindu populace, thus displaying the superiority of their own cultures and monotheist religions, even though the Mughals belonged to a religious category that was seen at the time as fundamentally antagonistic to Christianity. It may well be that geographical distance made Muslim Mughal India far more sympathetic to a European eye than the threatening Ottoman Empire. However, if Bernier’s European viewpoint ‘incorporates something of the Muslim perspective on Hinduism’ (Dew, Orientalism, p. 136), his book is not devoid of criticism of the Mughals themselves, especially when it comes to analysing the political turmoil of the court. Indeed, his Machiavellian interpretation of what he witnessed contributed decisively to the rising European concept of Oriental despotism. The first sections to appear presented to a European audience the recent revolution in the Mughal Empire, through which the Emperor Aurangzeb came to the throne. While he recounts the emperor’s courtly demeanour and military exploits, Bernier insists repeatedly on Aurangzeb’s use of (false) religiosity to access power. He provides a detailed account of Aurengzeb’s cruel actions, yet he also greatly admires the emperor’s political ability and portrays him as a highly capable ruler. By contrast, his brother Dara’s far more tolerant approach to religious diversity placed him in line with his



françois bernier

245

ancestor Akbar’s syncretistic approach towards religion. However, Dara’s tolerance comes very close to sheer opportunism, as Bernier deploys the libertine theme of the political use of religious beliefs throughout the book. If Bernier was a privileged witness to the Mughals’ activities, he was also a keen observer of religious particularities, and their political significance. Although he displays some confusion about the origins of Sunnī Islam and the origin of the Ottomans, he is fully aware of the political and religious position of the Great Mughal in his court and amongst his people. He also shows some awareness of the political tensions between the Muslim rulers and the Hindu populace. And when it comes to describing the mullahs’ activities, their use of sham miracles and cunning manipulation of popular piety, there is little difference between them, the Brahmins and the Christian missions. Whatever their confession, it seems that the Lucretian argument against priesthood works well for Bernier, in his critical stance that is typical of the libertine attitude towards those who are under the yoke of religion. Bernier portrays the Muslim culture as a highly civilized one. In this he is not the only one: many travelers expressed their admiration and awe. What is quite specific to him is that his Machiavellian interpretation of all that he witnessed in the Mughal court is also used as an indirect means to reflect on an absolute conception of royal government, and on the political use of religion. In other words, Bernier tends to subvert the valence of the Christian norms of judgment he chooses to apply to a Muslim context. Publications François Bernier, Histoire de la derniere révolution des Etats du Grand Mogol, followed by Suite des Memoires du Sieur Bernier, 4 vols, Paris: Cl. Barbin, 1670-1 (comprises Histoire de la derniere revolution des Etats du grand Mogol, dediée au Roy [. . .], vol. 1, 1670; Evenemens particuliers, ou ce qui s’est passé de plus considerable aprés la guerre pendant cinq ans, ou environ, dans les Etats du grand Mogol [. . .], vol. 2, 1670; Suite des Memoires [. . .], vols 3 and 4, Paris, 1671); H.as. 4605 l-1/2 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) François Bernier, Histoire de la derniere révolution des états du Grand Mogol, The Hague, 1671-2 (pirated edition)

246

françois bernier

François Bernier, The history of the late revolution of the empire of the Great Mogol: Together with the most considerable passages for 5 years following in that empire. [. . .], vols 1 and 2, London: Moses Pitt, 1671 (English trans.; re-edit. Moses Pitt, Simon Miller and John Starkey, 1676); Wing B2043 (digitalised version available through EEBO) H. O[ldenburgh] (trans.), A continuation of the memoires of Monsieur Bernier, vols 3 and 4, London: Moses Pitt, 1672 (English trans.); Wing B2042 (digitalised version available through EEBO) S. de Vries (trans.), Verhael van de laetsten oproer Inden Staet des Grooten Mogols, Door de Heer F. Bernier, Amsterdam, 1672 (Dutch trans.) François Bernier, Die Geschichte von den . . . Staats- und Landes- Veränderungen des Grossen Moguls, Frankfurt, 1672-3 (German trans.); H.rel.terr. 222#Beibd.2 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) François Bernier, Istoria della ultima revoluzione delli Stati del Gran Mogol dell Sr Bernier tradotta in Italiano, Milan, 1675 (Italian trans.); MAGL.5.11.520 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze) François Bernier, and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Collections of Travels through Turky into Persia, and the East-Indies: Giving an account of the present state of those countries. As also a full relation of the five years wars, between Aureng-Zebe and his brothers in their father’s life-time, about the succession. And a voyage made by the Great Mogul (Aureng-Zebe) with his army from Delhi to Lahor, from Lahor to Bember, and from thence to the kingdom of Kachemire, by the Mogols, call’d, the Paradise of the Indies, London: Moses Pitt, 1684 (English trans.); Wing T251 (vol. 1), Wing T252 (vol. 2) (digitalised version available through EEBO) François Bernier, Voyages de François Bernier, Docteur en medecine de la Faculté de Montpellier, contenant la description des états du Grand Mogol, de l’Hindoustan, du Royaume de Kachemire, &c., 2 vols, Amsterdam: Paul Marret, 1699 (reissued 1709-10, 1711, 1723-4; Paris, 1830, ‘aux frais du gouvernement pour procurer du travail aux ouvriers typographiques’ without illustrations); It.sing. 84-1 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) I. Brock (trans.), Travels in the Mogul Empire, by Francis Bernier, 2 vols, London, 1826 (English trans.)



françois bernier

247

François Bernier, The history of the late revolution of the empire of the Great Mogol, trans. H. Oldenburg, Bombay: Summachar Press, 1830 (English trans.) I. Brock (trans.), Travels in the Mogul Empire, AD 1656-1668, by François Bernier, ed. A. Constable, Oxford, 1891 (first revised edition by V.A. Smith, 1916; second revised edition, London, 1934; repr. New Delhi, 1992, 1996, 2004) François Bernier, Travels in Hindusthan. Or the history of the late revolution of the dominions of the Great Mogol, from 1655 to 1661, trans. Henry Oldenburg, Calcutta, 1904 François Bernier, Voyage dans les états du Grand Mogol, ed. F. Bhattacharya, Paris, 1981 (no critical apparatus, incomplete) F. Tinguely, A. Paschoud and C.-A. Chamay (eds), Un libertin dans l’Inde moghole. Les voyages de François Bernier (1656-1669), Paris, 2008 (reproduces the original 1670-1 edition) Studies Below are the few studies of Voyages that include references to Islam or Christian-Muslim relations. I. Moreau, ‘Figures exotiques du déisme de Mersenne à Bernier’ La Lettre Clandestine 21 (2013) 99-114 Dew, Orientalism in Louis XIV’s France M.R. Pirbhai, Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian context, Leiden, 2009 Isabelle Moreau

Shaykh Niẓām al-Dīn Burhānpūrī Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Burhanpur, India Date of Death 1681 Place of Death Burhanpur, India

Biography

Shaykh Niẓām al-Dīn Burhānpūrī was a scholar of the Ḥanafī school of law who lived in South Asia during the second half of the 17th century. He was a close friend of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr (16181707), and served him in administrative and private matters for more than 40 years, representing him on important occasions such as marriage ceremonies and the signing of peace agreements. In 1664, he was appointed by Aurangzeb as the chief scholar responsible for compiling Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya, also known as Al-fatāwā l-Hindiyya. In recognition of his trustworthiness and devotion, he received the imperial award of Muqarrab Khān or ‘closest friend’. The idea of compiling the Fatāwā was originated with the aim of replacing the old and confusing legal corpus with a new and authoritative compendium of Ḥanafī legal judgments that would function as a general and widely applicable judicial reference within the Mughal Empire. To accomplish this task, Shaykh Niẓām appointed four prominent scholars as heads of sections. The four co-editors were Qāḍī Muḥammad Jaunpūrī, ʿAlī Akbar Saʿdallāh Khānī, Hāmid al-Jaunpūrī and Muftī Muḥammad Akram, each having ten co-authors to assist him. Although the Fatāwā were compiled by a syndicate of more than 40 Ḥanafī scholars, the only author named in the book is Shaykh Niẓām. In some manuscripts, the other scholars involved are mentioned collectively: ‘al-Fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya . . . compiled by Shaykh Niẓām and some of the renowned Indian ʿulamāʾ.’ During the writing of the Fatāwā, Shaykh Niẓām and the emperor met regularly to read and consult on specific sections of the compilation. On one occasion, the emperor reviewed a text edited by Shāh ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, the father of Shāh Walī Allāh, and was unhappy with the content. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the text to Shaykh Niẓām, triggering an



shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

249

argument between Shaykh Niẓām and Shāh ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, and prompting the latter’s departure from the project. Apart from his involvement in the Fatāwā, not much is known about the author and his scholarly work. No reference exists that might indicate his celebrity status within the Mughal Empire and it appears that he was unknown prior to his royal appointment and his collection of fatwas. It can therefore be assumed that his appointment as the person responsible for compiling the Fatāwā resulted from his personal relationship with the emperor.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Ishvardās Nāgar, Futuḥāt-i ‘Ālamgīrī, trans. M.F. Lokhandwala and J. Sarkar, Vadodara, 1995 Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī l-kutub wa-l-funūn, Baghdad, 1987 Secondary M.I. Bhatti, Barr-i saghīr Pak wa Hind min ʿilm-i fiqh, idārat al-thaqāfa al-islamiyya, Lahore, 1973 ʿAbd al-Ḥayy ibn Fakhruddīn al-Ḥasanī, Al-iʿlām bi-man fī tārīkh al-Hind min al-aʿlām, Hyderabad, 1951 Saqi Mustaʿidd Khan, Maāsir-i ʿĀlamgiri, trans. J.N. Sarkar, Calcutta, 1947 Muḥammad Kāẓim ibn-i Muḥammad Amīn, ‘ ʿĀlamgīrnāmah’, in H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson, (eds), The history of India, as told by its own historians. The Muhammadan period, London, 1877, vol. 7, pp. 174-80 B. Khān, ‘Mira⁠ʾāt-i ʿālam’, in Elliot and Dowson, (eds), The history of India, as told by its own historians, vol. 7, pp. 145-65 K. Khān, ‘Muntakhab al-lubāb’, in Elliot and Dowson, (eds), The history of India, as told by its own historians, vol. 7, pp. 207-533 M. Nadwi, Aurangzeb aur tadwīn Fatāwā-yi ʿĀlamgīrī, Lucknow, (s.d.) M. Nadwi, Fatāwā-yi ʿĀlamğīrī ke mūʾallifīn, Lahore, (s.d.)

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya Al-fatāwā l-Hindiyya, ‘Legal opinions of the time of Aurangzeb’ Date 1664-72 Original Language Arabic

250

shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

Description Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya is a compendium of Muslim law according to the Ḥanafī school of jurisprudence. It was compiled by a team of more than 40 scholars between 1664 and 1672 in northern India under the supervision of Shaykh Niẓām al-Dīn Burhānpūrī and with the patronage of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The work was a comprehensive restatement of Ḥanafī law, incorporating the legal opinions of traditional legal texts and contemporary jurists of South Asia. In structure, it closely followed the standard divisions of other Ḥanafī texts such as the Hidāya of Burhān al-Dīn al-Marghīnānī, another popular and authoritative legal text in South Asia. Since Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya contained more cases than the Hidāya to illustrate various legal opinions, as well as incorporating local customs and more recent legal rulings, it soon achieved an authoritative place in the legal canon in the region. While initially written in Arabic, it was soon translated into Persian for use in the Mughal administration. In the 1991 edition, the work contains 3,392 pages in six volumes. Christians are mentioned in several sections of the work, referred to as either ahl al-kitāb (the people of the book), or al-Naṣārā. The main sections dealing with Christians and Christianity are those devoted to subjects of interfaith and interreligious relations, including sections about conversion, apostasy, interreligious marriage, commercial transactions, peace and war, and work relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. At the time of its compilation in South Asia in the 17th century, Christians constituted a very small and insignificant religious community, but they nevertheless seem to be more prominent in the Fatāwā compilation than Hindus and Jains (regarded as idolaters), who were the majority within South Asian society at the time. Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya was not written as an original work of law. Rather, it is a compendium in which the religious opinions of earlier famous Ḥanafī scholars were gathered and evaluated through tarjīḥ, the method of weighing conflicting opinions. The authors of the Fatāwā selected different legal opinions from different periods and legal works of the Ḥanafī school of law. After comparing them, they adopted the opinion which, according to their criteria, would provide the best solution for the situation in South Asia at that time. Generally speaking, a large part of the compendium consists of opinions from the formative period of Ḥanafī law, that is, the literature known as ẓāhir al-riwāya, written in Iraq in the 8th and 9th centuries, when the main non-Muslim religious group would have been Christians. Accordingly, when the authors of



shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

251

Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya refer to the scholars of the Ḥanafī school and their opinions regarding non-Muslims, they had two options: either substitute the references to Christians and Christianity by using terms relevant to the South Asian context, or retain the old terminology without changing anything. The text shows that they chose the second option. Technically speaking, Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya does not consist of blind imitation (taqlīd) of already existing legal opinions. At the end of every chapter, and after comparing all available opinions, the authors chose one opinion as a model, explaining their choice by saying ‘this is the best opinion’ or ‘this opinion should be the legal norm’. Their selection is mainly based on pragmatic reasoning in that the chosen opinions were better suited to the South Asian reality than others would have been. To understand why the authors used traditional Arabic terms referring to Christianity and Christians in the compendium, it is important to take the following facts into consideration. In the second part of the 17th century, Muslims of South Asia saw themselves in relation to ‘others’ in terms of the concept of dhimma, which regulates the relations of the Muslim state to its non-Muslim subjects, as well as interfaith relations between citizens. Accordingly, only ahl al-kitāb, which is to say Jews, Christians and to some extent Zoroastrians, were allowed to live under Muslim rule, provided they agreed to pay the relevant taxes. All other non-Muslims had only two options: either to convert to Islam or to leave Muslim territory. This concept of dhimma was applied by Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya when dealing with the non-Muslims of South Asia. Since non-Muslims (Hindus and other religious communities) formed the majority of the population, and since it was impossible to force them to convert or leave the Muslim territory, the Muslim rulers of South Asia, from the beginning of the 12th century onwards, decided to tolerate them and to treat them as if they were dhimmīs. However, these non-Muslims had to pay a poll tax ( jizya) in order to profit from the protection of the Muslim state. During Mughal rule, from 1526 to 1858, this poll tax was applied rather inconsistently. During the rule of Emperor Akbar (15561605), it was abolished altogether. When Aurangzeb became emperor in 1657, relaunching the jizya was one of the main issues on his agenda. Historians of that period emphasise that the reintroduction of the jizya was meant to encourage the Hindus to embrace Islam. Hindu historians also understand this as an attempt at forced conversion, and emphasise that this was the main reason for the revolts of the Rajputs against the Mughal Empire.

252

shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

Accordingly, it seems that, in Muslim legal theory at the time, being Hindu was not seen as an acknowledged status. The authors of Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya considered Hinduism a temporary status; Hindus were treated as potential Muslims. Consequently, mentioning ‘Hindus’ in the work would have been understood as a recognition of their rights and status, and would have been an infringement of the understanding of dhimmī, according to which idolaters did not have the right to live under Muslim rule. To solve this dilemma, the Muslim religious authorities avoided speaking of Hindus and rarely employed the term wathanī (idolater). Christians as a religious category became the model for outlining ground rules that were effectively applied to all non-Muslim religious groups in South Asia at the time, even those that did not belong to the ahl al-kitāb. Scholars of Islamic law simply applied the tools of analogy to extend the case of Christians to other religious groups of South Asia. One of the main sections where Christians are repeatedly used as a central theme is in the second volume Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya, where authors debate the subject of conversion from other religions to Islam. In this chapter, non-Muslim religious communities are divided into two categories: non-Muslims who are idolaters (Hindus, Buddhists and ­others) and those who are people of the scripture ( Jews and Christians). For Christians and Jews, the ritual of conversion to Islam was more complicated than for idolaters. For the latter, it was sometimes sufficient to recite certain sentences or terms, such as ‘I am a Muslim’, ‘Islam’ or ‘I am like you’. In contrast, Christians and Jews who wished to convert to Islam needed to publicly reject their former religion and perform other rituals in order to purify their soul from their former religions. These differences in conversion requirements indicate that Christianity and monotheistic religions presented a unique challenge to Muslim scholars in South Asia. They feared the confusion of their religion if Jews and Christians turned to Islam without purifying themselves from their former religions. Furthermore, according to the hierarchy of religions presented in the Fatāwā, it seems that non-Muslim religions such as Hinduism were seen as less challenging than Christianity. This can be explained by the interest of the Mughal state in converting as much of its Hindu population as possible to Islam in order to create a sort of religious balance in the society. In another chapter, dedicated to religious buildings, the Fatāwā presents the debate among Ḥanafī scholars of the 8th century in the Middle East regarding the establishment of religious buildings by non-Muslims



shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

253

in Muslim territories. The example of building churches in Muslim territories serves as a case study that can be used as a reference in dealing with other religions. In the issue of marriage and divorce, cases of Christians were elaborated so extensively by the authors that they became the standard by which to deal with marriage matters, as well as within other religious communities. When it comes to economic transactions, the authors refer to Christians whenever subjects of commercial transactions or contracts between non-Muslims or between Muslims and Muslims are debated. In this regard, it seems that the Fatāwā conceived of non-Muslims as ‘Christians’; if they were not in fact Christians, they were legally treated as if they were. Significance Although the intention of writing Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya was to create a compilation of Ḥanafī legal doctrines and judgments that would incorporate the recent rulings of Ḥanafī jurists in South Asia with a distillation of jurisprudence from standard legal texts, the treatment of Christians in the work did not necessarily reflect the 17th-century reality in South Asia. There appears to be little recognition of the Christian communities in South India, including the establishment of the Portuguese communities at Goa. Instead, the terms used for Christianity and Christians and cases in which they are employed as legal examples reflect the cultural milieu of 8th- and 9th-century Iraq, where Ḥanafi fiqh was born. However, the use of Christians as a legal category becomes important in dealing with other religious groups because the authors of the work did not recognise non-Muslim religious groups of South Asia, who were mainly idolaters, as legitimate. Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya, as the most significant Ḥanafī legal text produced in India during the Mughal dynasty, is thus representative of other Muslim legal texts originating in India in the way it uses Christians as a model for dealing with other religious sects and communities. The significance of the continuation of this practice in the new compilation sponsored by Aurangzeb is that it would have had a direct impact on the emperor’s policy towards non-Muslim populations, as is seen in his re-imposition of the jizya, not only on Christians but on all non-Muslims. Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya continued to be the major legal text in South Asia even into the period of British rule, when portions were translated and used to determine the Muslim law that would be administered to Muslims.

254

shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

Publications Najm al-Dīn Khān (ed. and trans.), Nuskhah-i tarjamah-i kitāb al-jināyāt fatāwá-yi ʿĀlamgīriyyá, Calcutta, 1813 (Persian translation of the penal code) Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya fi-l furūʿ al-Ḥanafiyya, Calcutta, 1828-35 (English title page, Futawa Alumgiri; a collection of opinions and precepts of Mohammadan law, compiled by Sheikh Nizam and other learned men, by command of the Emperor Aurungzeb Alumgir) Fatāwā ʿĀlamgīrī, Lucknow, 1890 Fatāwā ʿĀlamgīrī, Calcutta, 1930 S.A. Ali (trans.), Fatāwá-yi Hindiyya al-maʿruf b’l Fatāwá-yi ʿĀlamgīrī, Lucknow, 1932 (Urdu trans.) Kafīl ar-Raḥmān (ed. and trans.), Fatāwá ʿĀlamgīrī mukammil mudallil Urdu, Deoband, 1968 (Urdu trans.) S. Nizam, Al-fatāwā al-Hindiyya al-ʿĀlamgīriyya, 6 vols, Beirut, 1991 Studies M. Khalfaoui, ‘Together but separate. How Muslim scholars conceived of religious plurality in South Asia in the seventeenth century’, BSOAS 74 (2011) 87-96 M. Khalfaoui, ‘From religious to social conversion. How Muslim scholars conceived of the rites de passage from Hinduism to Islam in seventeenth-century South Asia’, Journal of Beliefs and Values 32 (2011) 85-93 M. Khalfaoui, L’Islam indien. Pluralité ou pluralisme. Le cas d’Al-fatāwā al-Hindiyya, Frankfurt am Main, 2008 A. Guenther, ‘Hanafi fiqh in Mughal India: The Fatāwá-i ʿĀlamgīrī ’, in R.M. Eaton (ed.), India’s Islamic traditions, 711-1750, New Delhi, 2003, 209-30 M. Wadoodi, ‘Juristic expression of the rules of marriage as presented in the Fatawa Alamgiri (17th century India)’, Manchester, 1992 (PhD Diss. University of Manchester) Z. Islam, Socio economic dimension of fiqh literature in medieval India, Lahore, 1990 A.A. Qadri, ‘The Fatāwā-i-ʿAlamgīri’, Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 14 (1966) 188-99 Abul-Muzaffar, ‘Aurangzeb and the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri’, Al-Islam 1 (1953) 62-3, 79-80, 82, 100-1, 110-11, 118-19, 131-3



shaykh niẓām al-dīn burhānpūrī

255

Al-Haj Mahomed Ullah ibn S. Jung, The Muslim Law of pre-emption – Shuf’a, compiled from the original Arabic authorities and containing the text and translation of the Fatâwâ-ī-‘Alamgîrî and the Fatâwâ-iKâzî Khân, Allahabad, 1931 N.B.E. Baillie, The land tax of India, according to the Moohummudan law; translated from the Futawa Alumgeeree with explanatory notes and an introductory essay containing a brief exposition of leading principles, and their application to the present system of land revenue, London, 1853 N.B.E. Baillie, The Moohummudan law of sale, according to the Huneefeea code: from the Futawa Alumgeeree, a digest of the whole law, prepared by command of the Emperor Aurungzebe Alumgeer, London, 1850 Mouez Khalfaoui

British travellers to South Asia Thomas Cordyte, Ralph Fitch, William Finch, William Hawkins, and Peter Mundy Date of Birth Cordyte, about 1577; Fitch, about 1550; Finch, unknown; Hawkins, unknown; Mundy, 1596 Place of Birth Cordyte, Crewkerne; Fitch, possibly Derby; Finch, possibly London; Hawkins, unknown; Mundy, Penryn, Cornwall Date of Death Cordyte, 1617; Fitch, 1611; Finch, 1613; Hawkins, 1633; Mundy, 1667 Place of Death Cordyte, Surat, India; Fitch, England; Finch, Babylon; Hawkins, unknown; Mundy, England

Biography

At the end of the 16th century and during the 17th century, a number of British travellers left records of their travels to ‘strange and different’ worlds. Five feature here: Ralph Fitch, William Hawkins, William Finch, Thomas Cordyte (aka Coryat(e), Corite, Cordite, Coryte) and Peter Mundy. Thomas Cordyte appears to have been a traveller for the sake of adventure, although that may have begun as a desire to see the ‘holy sites’. It would seem Ralph Fitch travelled with an eye to developing trade, and, similarly, William Hawkins, William Finch and Peter Mundy were part of the East India Company’s endeavour to establish trading posts (factors) in India (which at the time included present-day Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and, to a lesser degree, Sri Lanka) in order to take advantage of what that country, and others, had to offer. Fitch and Cordyte travelled overland through Mesopotamia and Persia. The others sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, heading for Surat on the Gulf of Kambhat, Gujarat.



british travellers to south asia

257

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary William Hawkins, Voyagie van Capiteyn William Hawkins / door Oost-Indien, gedaan anno 1607 en vervolgens . . .: Nevens verscheyde aanmerkingen van eenige kustenn en een voyagie in Oost-Indien . . . gedaan en beschreven door sijn koopman en reys-genoot William Finch, beginnende 1607; nu aldereerst uyt het Engelsch vertaald, Leyden, 1706 Edward Terry, A voyage to East India, London, 1777 J. Horton Ryley, Ralph Fitch. England’s pioneer to India and Burma, London, 1899 S. Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes. Contayning a history of the world in sea voyages and lande travells by Englishmen and others. Vols. III and IV, Glasgow, 1905 R.C. Temple (ed.), The travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667, London, 1907 Secondary R.E. Pritchard, (ed.), Peter Mundy. Merchant adventurer, Oxford, 2011 J. Farrell, ‘An Elizabethan in Asia. Ralph Fitch, our most adventurous leatherseller’, The Leathersellers Review (2007-8) 16-18 R.E. Pritchard, Odd Tom Coryate. The English Marco Polo, Sutton, 2004 T. Dickie, art. ‘Fitch, Ralph (1550?-1611)’, ODNB B. Morgan, art. ‘Hawkins, William (b. c. 1560)’, ODNB R. Raiswell, art. ‘Mundy, Peter (b. c. 1596, d. in or after 1667)’, ODNB M. Strachan, art. ‘Coryate, Thomas (1577?-1617)’, ODNB M. Strachan, art. ‘Coryate, Thomas (c. 1577-1617)’, in Literature of travel and exploration. An encyclopedia, New York, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 285-7 M. Edwardes, Ralph Fitch. Elizabethan in the Indies, London, 1972 M. Strachan, The life and adventures of Thomas Coryate, London, 1962

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Reports by British travellers: Thomas Cordyte, Ralph Fitch, William Finch, William Hawkins, and Peter Mundy Date Late 16th and 17th centuries Original Language English Description Reports written by British travellers represent an activity that began towards the end of the 16th century and continued on through the 17th century. The adventuring travellers left records of their travels to

258

british travellers to south asia

the ‘strange and different’ worlds they encountered and sojourned in. Here we draw on the reports of five representative travellers, focusing on travels to India and the consequent encounters that took place, in varying ways, between British Christians and Indian Muslims, among others. Travelling to India offered much to be seen and experienced that was new and very different. In describing novel encounters, as well as applying presuppositions, comparison and reference was usually made to what was previously known. Mundy includes drawings with his writings, adding further value to his reports. In their journeys through the subcontinent, these travellers encountered various cultures and languages, including many different expressions of religion. They wrote about their encounters in terms of their impressions. For example, a number witnessed the custom of sati, where a widowed wife dies in the fire cremating her husband’s body. However, Hindu life and custom was only part of the encounter. While much of the north of the subcontinent had been conquered by Mughal (Muslim) invaders, there were other Muslim rulers in various parts of peninsular India. And although the influence of Islam was obviously spreading throughout the country, it was mainly in the (Mughal) royal court, and the towns where the royal court was located, that Muslim influence and practice were most obvious. Not surprisingly, therefore, it is mostly when interacting with Muslim merchants, or having to deal with the royal court, that comments were made about Muslim customs and practices. So, while usually not commenting on Islam as such, the travellers nevertheless reflect on how they saw Islam being practised. One of the earliest of these travellers was Ralph Fitch, whose aim was to go to China via the East Indies. In 1583, he travelled overland until he reached the Burmese kingdom of Pegu, but then turned back the way he came. When Fitch first reached India, Akbar (Ecabar) was ruler. Akbar, Fitch noted, had his ‘own’ religion. On his return to London, Fitch’s account was included in Richard Hakluyt’s 1598 edition of Principal navigations. But on his return visit in 1605, Akbar’s son Jahāngīr had become ruler. According to Fitch, the talk was that Jahāngīr had poisoned his father. Fitch also noted that there had been a return to Islam. While Fitch comments about ‘Moores’ in the various countries of his travels, apart from noticing their presence in places of trading, he makes little comment on their practices. William Hawkins and William Finch arrived in India 1608 and were with the East India Company for the primary purpose of establishing trade. Hawkins had been sent as the ambassador and carried with him



british travellers to south asia

259

letters from the king of England to the king of India. Hawkins found his way to the court, where he was greatly favoured by Jahāngīr, much to the irritation of the Portuguese with their Jesuit supporters, who were also endeavouring to obtain the Mughal’s favours. That Hawkins could speak Turkish was to his advantage. At times the ‘Mores’ (as Hawkins calls them) sided with Hawkins to frustrate the Portuguese, while on other occasions the ‘Mores’ worked either independently or with the Portuguese to frustrate Hawkins, and thus the English. Nevertheless Hawkins notes: ‘to say the truth, the principall Mahumetans neere the King envied much that a Christian should bee so nigh unto him’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 14). Hawkins also found it quite challenging to be a Christian in the Mughal court, not wanting to make enemies of the many ‘Mahumetans’ there, for he writes: ‘it went against their hearts, that a Christian should be so great & neere the King; and the more, because the King had promised to make his Brothers children Christians, which two years after my comming he performed, commanding them to be made Christians’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 17). Regarding this action of Jahāngīr, Hawkins writes: ‘. . . he made his brothers children Christians; the doing whereof was not for any zeale he had to Christianitie, as the Fathers and all Christians thought; but upon the prophecie of certain learned Gentiles, who told him, that the sonnes of his body should be disinherited, and the children of his brother should raigne. And therefore he did it, to make these children hatefull to all Moores, as Christians are odious in their sight: and that they beeing once Christians, when any such matter should happen, they should find no subjects . . .’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 47). The king pressed Hawkins to take a wife. Hawkins refused a Moor, but was willing to accept a Christian, suspecting that one could not be found. However, the king brought him the daughter of an Armenian Christian who held a significant position in the court, whom he married. Regarding conducting business in the court, Hawkins writes: ‘Knowing the custome of these Mores that without gifts and bribes, nothing would either go forward or bee accomplished, I sent my Broker to seeke out for Jewels, fitting for the Kings Sister and new Paramour: and likewise, for this new Vizir, and his son’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 25). When Hawkins’s frustrations reached a turning point, he writes: ‘to stay I would not amongst these faithlesse Infidels’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 26). Hawkins also comments on the emperor’s devotion: ‘First in the morning about the break of day, he is at his Beades, with his face turned to the West-ward. The manner of his praying when he is in Agra,

260

british travellers to south asia

is in a private faire roome, upon a goodly jet stone, having onely a Persian lamb-skinne under him: having also some eight chaines of Beads, every one of them containing foure hundred. . . . At the upper end of this Jet stone, the Pictures of our Lady and Christ are placed, grave in stone: so he turneth over his Beads, and saith, three thousand two hundred words, according to the number of his Beads, and then his Prayer is ended’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 45). Hawkins also notes the king’s yearly custom of being weighed on a gold balance and then distributing the money equal to his weight to the poor, though he was compensated by gifts from his courtiers the next day, which equalled or exceeded the amount he had given away. Much of the value of Hawkins’s writing is in his description of the structure of the Mughal Empire. He notes the king’s preference for the ‘Mahumetans (weak spirited men, devoid of resolution)’ above ‘the Rasbootes or Gentiles, and natural Indians’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 36). He also describes the management of the empire, the king’s wealth, especially his love of jewels and animals (‘horses, elephants, oxen, camel, deer, dogges, buffalaes, hawks and pigeons’) and he details his frustrations in trying to ‘do business’ in the court. And he witnesses the ‘cruel way’ in which the king executed judgement on his subjects (see Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 38-40). Undoubtedly, his readers would have been left with impressions, some less than favourable, about Islam and how it was put into practice, especially in terms of trade relations. While Hawkins was at court, Finch was his representative at large. He recorded his observations in ‘A relation of Mr. Finch, Merchant, concerning his Trade and Travels in the Mogul’s Country’ included by Purchas in Purchas his pilgrimes (1625). On arrival in India, Finch and those with him were badly treated by the Portuguese, who also incited the king’s representative (a Muslim), who became a constant source of trouble and difficulty to the English for many years. Finch recounts the following incident regarding the Christianising of the king’s brother’s sons. He writes: ‘All this Moneth also was much stirre with the King about Christianitie, hee affirming before his Nobles, that it was the soundest faith, and that of Mahomet lies and fables. He commanded also three Princes, his deceased brothers sonnes, to be instructed by the Jesuits, and that Christian apparell to be made for them, the whole City admiring’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 40). However, Finch then adds: ‘And yet at the same time, Abdel Hassan’s [the King’s chief vizir] judgement was,



british travellers to south asia

261

that “it was not justice to pay debts to Christians . . .” ’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 40). It is hardly surprising, then, that Finch reacted (at least in writing) with rather strong words. The veneration of saints was another practice that Finch commented on. He visited the shrine of ‘a great Moorish saint, called Hoghee Mondee, whereto the Acabar wanting children, made a foot-pilgrimage to beg for issue, and caused a pillar at each course to be set up; and a Mohall with lodgings for sixteene great women at every eighth course alongst, and after his returne obtained three sonnes’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 41). Finch also describes in some detail the ‘goodliest Meskite (mosque) of the East (Agra)’. Finch’s main contribution, however, is his description of the country and the events that were taking place during his stay there, as well as information on the East India Company’s attempts to establish trade. In general, his work leaves an impression of Islam that is, arguably, somewhat less than positive. Thomas Cordyte was another, albeit eccentric, traveller who seems to have had a flair for languages. He arrived in India in 1615 and was in attendance at the Mughal court while Jahāngīr was ruler and wrote a memoir entitled Thomas Coriate, traueller for the English vvits: greeting from the court of the Great Mogul, resident at the towne of Asmere in Easterne India, published in 1616 and 56 pages in length. Later he sent a second letter to England, published as Mr Thomas Coriat to his friends in England sendeth greeting from Agra the capitall city of the dominion of the great Mogoll in the Easterne India, the last of October, 1616. Thy trauels and thy glory to ennamell, with fame we mount thee on the lofty came in 1618, at 52 pages. His writings were included in Purchas his pilgrimes published in 1625. He notes that ‘[t]his present Prince is a very worthy person, by name Selim’ (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, vol. 4, p. 473). He continues: ‘He is fiftie three yeares of age, his nativitie day having bin celebrated with wonderfull pompe since my arrivall here: for that day he weighed himselfe in a paire of golden Scales which by great chance I saw the same day (a custome that he observes most inviolably every yeere) laying so much golde in the other Scale as countervaileth the weight of his body, and the same he afterward distributed to the poore’ (p. 473). He also made this comment regarding the prince: ‘It is said that he is uncircumcised, wherein hee differeth from all the Mahometan Princes that ever were in the world’ (p. 474). And he also added: ‘He speaketh very reverently of our Saviour, calling him in the Indian tongue, Ifazaret Eesa, that is, the great Prophet, Jesus: and all Christians, especially us English, he useth so benevolently, as no Mahometan Prince the like’ (p. 474).

262

british travellers to south asia

According to Cordyte, Ecbar’s (Akbar) mother ‘demanded of him, that our Bible might be hanged about an Asses necke, and beaten about the Towne of Agra, for that the Portugals having taken a ship of theirs at Sea, in which was found an Al Coran amongst the Moores, tyed it about the necke of a Dogge, and beat the same Dogge about the Towne of Ormuz: but hee denied her request, saying, That if it were ill in the Portugals to doe so to the Al Coran, being it became not a King to requite ill with ill, for that the contempt of any Religion, was the contempt of God, and he would not be revenged upon an innocent Booke: and the morall being, that God would not suffer the sacred Booke of his Truth to be contemned amongst the Infidels’ (pp. 474, 491). According to Terry (A voyage, p. 253), on one occasion Cordyte ‘got him upon on high place directly opposite one of those priests, and contradicted him thus: la alla illa alla, Hazaret Eesa Ben-alia; that is, no God, but one God, and the Lord Christ, the Son of God; and further added, that Mahomet was an imposter: And all this he spake in their own language, as loud as possibly he could.’ Terry added ‘had [it] been acted in many other places of Asia, would have cost him his life, with as much torture as cruelty could have invented; but he was here taken for a mad-man, and so let alone’. Cordyte (pp. 492-4) also notes that the king ‘likes not those that change their Religion’ and recalls an incident where one of his Armenian servants, Scander, was asked if ‘he or the Padres had converted one Moore to bee a true Christian, and that was so for conscience sake, and not for money . . .’. The Armenian replied that he had, and the king caused the person, who was the Armenian’s servant, to appear at the court. The king tried to dissuade him by offering him financial incentives but he replied ‘that he was a Christian in his heart, and would not alter it’. The king then threatened him with torture and whippings but ‘the Proselyte manfully resolved to suffer anything, answered, he was readie to endure the Kings pleasure. The King then changed his tune highly commending him’. Later, however, while hunting, the king caught wild hogges ‘which are odious to all Moores’. These he distributed to Christians and others. The king, desiring to send some to Scander, did so by the hand of this particular servant, who was so taunted by the Muslims that he threw the meat away. Sometime later, Scander was in the court and the king asked him about the meat, of which he knew nothing. The king then called in the servant, who confessed to being so shamed for carrying the meat that was ‘odious to the Moores’ that he threw it away. The king replied: ‘By your law there is no difference of meats; are you



british travellers to south asia

263

ashamed of your lawes? Or to flatter the Mahumetans, do you in outward things forsake it? Now I see, thou art neither a good Christian, nor a good Mahumetan but a dissembling knave with both.’ The king took away his pension and also ordered that he receive a hundred lashes. Peter Mundy was in India from 1628 to 1633, and again in 1655-6. He travelled extensively through northern India on East India Company business. He made notes of his observations, which he later collated in chronological order; they were not published until 1907 (Raiswell, ‘Mundy’). He described his travels and on occasions made drawings of what he has seen. His initial journey took place during the great famine and his last journey was fraught with difficulties, partly, as he himself admits, because he did not have adequate language knowledge. Mundy’s comments on Islam are in passing rather than the result of any specific interest. He recognises that the Moores reign as conquerors over the ‘Hindowes’, adding ‘. . . takeinge from them all they can gett by their labour, leaveinge them with nothinge but their badd mud walled ill thatched covered bowses, and a few Cattell to till the ground, beside other miseries’ (Temple, Travels of Peter Mundy, p. 73). He also notes that some of them were prisoners because they could not ‘pay the Tax imposed on them. . . . This is the life of the Hindoes or Naturalls of Hinndostan etts [and other] part of India under the subjection of the Mogoll hereawaies’ (p. 74). And on a number of occasions, Mundy writes of visiting tombs that had become shrines. He was not permitted to enter Sereshawes (Sher Shāh’s) tomb ‘because it was taken upp with [a Moslem leader’s] weomen, soe there was noe admittance for that tyme’ (p. 132). On visiting Chandan Shāh’s tomb he notes that ‘he is honoured as a Sainct amongst the Moores’ (p. 133). And on visiting Cosrooes [Khusru’s] tomb, he wrote: ‘Most of our Mussellmen [Musalman] servants offered to him some flowers, some sweete meats. The former are throwne over his Tombe, but the latter the Priests take to themselves. Att his head is his Turbant, red Coloured, with a sprigg of blacke feathers in it, and by it the Alcoron [Koran], on a little frame, in which hee was found reading att his deaths’ (p. 181). Mundy also wrote of his visit to ‘Qfuaz Mondeene, one of the most esteemedst saints in all India. . . . I went for Curiositie to see the tombe [of ] Qfauz Mondeene [Khwaja Mu’inu’d-din Chishti] standing att one end of the Towne. This is the Saint to whome King Ecbar [Akbar] came barefoote on Pilgrimage to have children . . . Those that enter . . . must leave their shooes without. . . . When I came forth, one presents mee with a rodd, another with seedes, another with Sandall, another water, ett, all

264

british travellers to south asia

belonginge to their Sainct, for which they must have your good will . . . Of him also are reported a world of false miracles’ (p. 243). Of Akbar’s journey to this saint, Mundy writes: ‘Hee haveinge never a Childe and being desirous of a Sonne to succeede him, hee was perswaded by a Fackeere [fakir] that if hee went barefoote to Adgemeere [Ajmer] to visitt and to offer to the Tombe of Qfuaz Mondeene [Khwaja Mu’inu’d-din Chishti] a reputed Saint among the Moores, hee should obteyne his said desire, which hee accordinglye performed (by way of Sanganeare [Sanganer], there being 150 Course from Agra to Adgeemeere); and att every Course end hee cawsed these Munaries to bee built! Hee had after this three Sonnes. It is said hee went on Carpetts all the way, but on this manner: There beinge a good space first spread, as fast as hee went on, the hindermost Carpetts were taken away, and readye spread in his way before hee came to them’ (p. 226). In his travels, Mundy also encountered a number of ‘holy men, fackeeres, some of whom were Hindooes, others Mussellmen and noted some of their habits and their customs’ (pp. 176-7). On another occasion he met a group of fakirs who ‘carried 4 or 5 faggotts of rodds like switches’. On asking the meaning he is told: ‘. . . by the Holynesse [of ] Qfauz Mondeene, whoever had a rodd of those in his hands should not bee bit by any venomous thinge, as Snake Scorpion, etts.; and they carried them to Agra where they sold them for 5 or 6 pice each, bringing them from Adzmeere [Ajmer], where they growe and where also is the Tombe of their said Saincte’ (pp. 238-9). The Great Messitt (musjid) which Mundy considered the fairest in all India, was built by [Sahm Chishti], a ‘much reputed Fackere’. He noted that there were ‘many fackeers etts, to attend it, whoe att certaine tymes in the day and night beat on great drumms and sound with Trumpetts, which is usually done att all great mens Tombes according as they are of abilitie’ (pp. 228-9). Mundy makes several interesting comments about the practices of the king. He notes that ‘the King and great men have Wizard astrologers, whoe are commonly Bramanes [Brahamans] or Mullaes \imdidjis\ (Moore priests)’ who calculate ‘such dayes and howers as are fortunate or unluckie, soe that they will not undertake any Journie, or begin any enterprize of purport but on such a Tyme as shalbe delivered them by the said Wizards’ (p. 194). He also notes that on 4 June 1632, ‘the kinge went to cellebrate Buckree Eede, as much to say as the feast of Goates, which the Moores observe in memory of Abraham, when hee went to sacrifize his Sonne (but whether Isaack or Ishmael I enquired not, it being a question) and in leiw offered upp a Goate (as they say). As he



british travellers to south asia

265

passed, he flunge gold amonge the people’ (p. 197). He also notes that the king celebrates Nouroze with his ‘Amrawes or Lords . . . all makeing the greatest shews of magnificence and mirth they can . . .’ and he estimated that the value of the king’s (peacock) throne was ‘fower millions and three hundred thousand pounds sterling’ (p. 237). Like the other travellers, Mundy’s primary contributions are his descriptions, together with his drawings, of life and practices in India. In conclusion, these five travellers and traders, Fitch, Hawkins, Finch, Cordyte and Mundy, provide glimpses of 17th-century Islam on the Indian subcontinent. While comments on Islam are more passing remarks than formal commentary, they reflect the travellers’ personal understanding and the impact of their experiences of encounter upon perception and so upon relations – most certainly, and very challengingly, in terms of trade. The Mughal court was equally challenging to deal with. Each of the writers’ comments are descriptive, rather than evaluative, but would have left an impression – most often somewhat negative vis-à-vis Muslims and Islam, on their readers. Significance The 16th century was a time of religious ferment. Martin Luther and other Reformation preachers and writers were having a great impact throughout Europe, while in England Henry VIII had separated from the Roman

Illustration 6. Shāh Jahān on a progress, from The travels of Peter Mundy (1608-67), vol. 2, p. 194 (sketch by Peter Mundy)

266

british travellers to south asia

Church, bringing the Church of England into being. In an attempt to isolate England from Europe and the wider (especially Catholic) world during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a papal Bull was issued, excommunicating the English monarch. However, in 1588 the English defeated the Spanish Armada and, around the same time, English sailors and adventurers were exploring the seas and finding new lands and new trade routes. It was in this context that they encountered Islam and Muslims, and so contributed to an understanding of the diverse nature of relations between Christians and Muslims at this time. All these travellers would have considered themselves Christian, if for no other reason than that, for the most part, ‘being Christian’ was part and parcel of contemporary English social identity. They naturally viewed what they saw through a ‘Christian lens’. It would seem that they also had some prior understanding of Islam, though the extent of it is difficult to ascertain. Usually, these travellers used the Spanish word ‘Moor’, and variant forms of ‘Mahomet’, when referring to Muslims and their Prophet. They were not in the sub-continent primarily to engage with Muslims and Islam as such. Rather, any interaction with Muslims was at a personal level and in a commercial context, usually in connection with trade. In this regard, they often encountered the employment of deception, delaying tactics, and the very frustrating frequent changing of decisions that had been otherwise made. Effecting trade relations and business was often a convoluted affair. While not associating these activities directly with any ‘religious’ group, or as manifesting a religious perspective, nevertheless, those hearing the stories and reading the accounts would have built up mental pictures of the identity and moral standing of those with whom the travellers had dealings, and this was almost always presumed to include the dimension of religion. Very often pictures and assessments would have been far from positive, thus contributing to a slanted understanding on the part of contemporary Christians as to what ‘being Muslim’ meant. Publications Ralph Fitch Richard Hakluyt, The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation, London, 1598; STC 12626 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625; STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) J.H. Ryley, Ralph Fitch. England’s pioneer to India and Burma, London, 1899



british travellers to south asia

267

R. Hakluyt, The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation, London, 1904, vol. 5, pp. 450-505 Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, Glasgow, 1905, vol. 6, pp. 165-204 William Hawkins Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625; STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) William Hawkins, Voyagie van Capiteyn William Hawkins / door Oost-Indien, gedaan anno 1607 en vervolgens . . .: Nevens verscheyde aanmerkingen van eenige kustenn en een voyagie in OostIndien . . . gedaan en beschreven door sijn koopman en reys-genoot William Finch, beginnende 1607; nu aldereerst uyt het Engelsch vertaald, Leiden, 1706 William Hawkins, ‘Narrative by William Hawkins, of occurrences during his residence in the dominions of the great Mogul’, in R. Kerr (ed.), General history and collection of voyages and travels, arranged in systematic order, London, 1813, vol. 8, 220-53 W. Hawkins, The Hawkins’ voyages during the reigns of Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and James I, London, 1878 Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, vol. 3, Glasgow, 1905, pp. 1-29 William Finch S. Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625; STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) W. Finch, ‘A relation of Mr. Finch, merchant, concerning his trade and travels in the Mogul’s country; with an account of the most remarkable roads and places of trade in that mighty empire’, in J. Harris (ed.), Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca, London, 1705, vol. 1, 83-91 Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, Glasgow, 1905, vol. 4, pp. 19-77 William Finch, India as seen by William Finch, 1608-11, ed. R. Nath, Jaipur, 1990 Thomas Cordyte Thomas Coryate, Thomas Coriate, traueller for the English vvits: greeting from the court of the Great Mogul, resident at the towne of Asmere in Easterne India, London, 1616; STC 5811 (digitalised version available through EEBO)

268

british travellers to south asia

Thomas Coryate, Mr Thomas Coriat to his friends in England sendeth greeting from Agra the capitall city of the dominion of the great Mogoll in the easterne India, the last of October, 1616. Thy trauels and thy glory to ennamell, with fame we mount thee on the lofty came, London, 1618; STC 5809 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625; STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, Glasgow, 1905, vol. 4, pp. 469-94 Edward Terry, A voyage to east India, London, 1777 Peter Mundy R.C. Temple (ed.), The travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 16081667, London, 1907 J. Keast (ed.), The travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667, Redruth, 1984 (extracts) Studies R.E. Pritchard (ed.), Peter Mundy. Merchant adventurer, Oxford, 2011 Farrell, ‘An Elizabethan in Asia’ Pritchard, Odd Tom Coryate Raiswell, ‘Mundy’ D. Moraes and S. Srivatsa, The long strider. How Thomas Coryate walked from England to India in the year 1613, New Delhi, 2003 M. Strachan, art. ‘Coryate, Thomas (c. 1577-1617)’, in Literature of travel and exploration. An encyclopedia, New York, 2003, vol. 1, 285-7 F.C. Danvers and W. Foster (eds), Letters received by the East India Company from its servants in the East, Amsterdam, 1968 (repr. of the 1896 London edition) R.C. Prasad, Early English travellers in India. A study in the travel literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods with particular reference to India, Delhi, 1980 M. Edwardes, Ralph Fitch. Elizabethan in the Indies, London, 1972 M. Strachan, The life and adventures of Thomas Coryate, London, 1962 C. Tragen, Elizabethan venture, London, 1953 B. Penrose, Urbane travelers, 1591-1635, Philadelphia PA, 1942 W. Foster (ed.) Early travels in India, 1583-1619, London, 1921 Ruth J. Nicholls

South-East Asia, China and Japan

Map 2. South-East Asia

Map 3. Eastern China

Francisco de Sande Francisco de Sande y Picón de Figueroa Date of Birth Approximately 1540 Place of Birth Cáceres, Spain Date of Death 22 September 1602 Place of Death Santa Fé de Bogotá, New Kingdom of Granada

Biography

Francisco de Sande was born in Cáceres into an aristocratic family. He studied in Salamanca and Seville, and became a doctor in law. He had a brilliant political career in New Spain before being appointed governor general of the Philippines in 1574. In his six years in Manila, he pursued the most ambitious political programme up to that time: expansion into Muslim domains, and Spanish conquest of China. Sande’s strategy was aggressive, to attack and destroy Brunei without the permission of the Spanish king. The destruction of the main mosque and the seizure of the gates and other Islamic relics earned the ire of the Christian clergy in Manila. In 1582, the Manila Synod denounced the governor’s arbitrary actions in attacking Brunei, countering the policy of Christian confrontation with Islam that Sande wanted. After Asia, Sande was sent to Spain and again to New Spain, where he was appointed governor general of Guatemala. Finally, he assumed one of the highest positions in the empire, becoming governor of the New Kingdom of Granada in 1596. He is one of the most remembered governors of both the Philippines and Colombia. In addition to his wellknown composition, Relación de la isla de Burney, he is also known for his famous letter sent to the sultan of Brunei, Carta del Doctor Francisco de Sande, Gobernador de Filipinas, al Rey de Borneo, pidiéndole venga de paz y amistad con el Rey de España, que tiene establecido ya su dominio sobre las Islas Filipinas, dated Borneo, 13 April 1578. This was delivered to the sultan by a mission led by Philippine Moros Magat and Magachina when Sande was in Borneo waiting to attack Brunei. It has been edited in Rodriguez, Historia, pp. 506-8. This letter provides evidence of the Tagalog language written in Arabic script, suggesting that the Manila Bay region was being Islamised at the time of the arrival of the Spanish.

274

francisco de sande

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Marcelo de Rivadereyna, Historia de las Islas del Archipiélago, y Reinos de la Gran China, Tartaria, Cochinchina, Malaca, Sian, Camboxa y Japón, Barcelona, 1601 Pedro Chirino, Relación de las islas Filipinas y de lo que en ellas han trabajado los Padres de la Compañía de Jesús, Rome, 1604 Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, Mexico City, 1609 Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola, Conquista de las Islas Malucas, Madrid, 1609 Francisco Combes, Historia de las Islas de Mindanao, Jolo y sus adyacentes, Madrid, 1667 Juan de la Concepción, Historia general de Philipinas. Conquistas espirituales y temporales de estos Españoles Dominios, establecimientos, Progresos, y Decadencias, Manila, 1788-1792 I.R. Rodríguez, Historia de la Provincia agustiniana del Smo. Nombre de Jesús de Filipinas, Manila, 1978, vol. 14, pp. 506-8 Secondary I. Altman, Emigrants and society. Extremadura and America in the sixteenth century, Berkeley CA, 1989 P. Rubio Merino, ‘El presidente don Francisco de Sande y don Bartolomé Lobo Guerrero, Arzobispo de Santa Fé,’ in B. Torres Ramírez and J.J. Hernández Palomo (eds), Andalucía y America en el siglo XVI. Actas de las II Jornadas de Andalucía y América, Seville, 1984, 67-113 A. Miramón, El doctor sangre, Bogotá, 1954

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Relación de la isla de Burney y jornada que allá hizo Francisco de Sande, ‘Account of the island of Brunei and the day that Francisco de Sande went there’ Date 29 July 1578 Original Language Spanish Description Francisco de Sande plotted several political campaigns without reference to protocol. He planned to conquer China and Brunei, and needed some sort of legal justification to proceed. Relación de la isla de Burney, which comes to 164 MS pages, is a compilation of various interviews that outline



francisco de sande

275

the role of Brunei in converting the Philippines to Islam, and records the formation of a coalition between the former rulers of Manila against the Spaniards with the support of Brunei. Since Islam was apparently in the process of penetrating the Tagalog region and Manila had close links with Brunei, Sande predicted an imminent uprising unless a direct attack against the Bornean sultanate took place. This document sets out the need to conquer the sultanate immediately, without waiting for permission from the king back in Spain, and describes the attack and the Spanish conquest of Brunei, including the destruction of its historic mosque, which was condemned without delay by the Synod of Manila. Relación de la isla de Burney is the political justification for the invasion of Brunei, and an account of the conquest. Significance Relación de la isla de Burney was designed by Sande to justify his venture, arguing that Islamic Brunei was a direct risk to Spanish Manila. The work illustrates how an unscrupulous European colonialist could with ease cite Islam as a pretext for furthering his political aspirations, and also how Islam at this time was being vigorously spread in South-East Asia, and could be interpreted as a political tool used to block the Spanish advance. Publications MS Seville, Archivo General de Indias – Patronato, leg. 24, R.48 (1578) H. Blair and J.A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Cleveland OH, 1903, vol. 4, pp. 148-303 (English trans.) D.E. Brown, ‘Spanish accounts of their expeditions against Brunei in 1578-79’, The Brunei Museum Journal 3 (1974) 180-221 R. Nicholl, European sources for the history of the Sultanate of Brunei in the 16th century, Brunei, 1975 J.S. Carroll, ‘Francisco de Sande’s invasion of Brunei 1578. An anonymous Spanish account’, The Brunei Museum Journal 6 (1976) 47-71 Rodríguez, Historia de la Provincia agustiniana del Smo, vol. 14, pp. 511-25 Studies I. Donoso, ‘Manila y la empresa imperial del Sultanato de Brunéi en el siglo XVI’, Revista Filipina 2 (2014) 14-24 G.E. Saunders, A history of Brunei, London, 2002 M. Ollé, La invención de China. Percepciones y estrategias filipinas respecto a China durante el siglo XVI, Wiesbaden, 2000

276

francisco de sande

D. de Salazar, Sínodo de Manila de 1582, ed. J.L. Porras Camúñez, Madrid, 1988, pp. 232-3 F. Blumentritt, ‘España y la isla de Borneo’, Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid 20 (1886) 129-48 Isaac Donoso

Tafsīr Sūrat al-Kahf Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown Date of Death Early 17th century Place of Death Unknown

Biography

The unnamed author of this work was almost certainly male, resident in Aceh, and a prominent member of the Muslim scholarly elite there in the second half of the 16th century. He would have received a solid educational formation in Islamic studies, covering Arabic language and the primary fields of Islamic learning, including Qur’an, Hadith, tafsīr, Sufism and so forth. He had a good understanding of classical Arab exegetical sources and hence he may well have spent a period of study in Arabia. He was almost certainly associated with a Sufi order, that being the norm for the Acehnese scholarly elite of his time. The fact that no other copies of this commentary survive suggests that the author may have been controversial, or that he was at least associated in the minds of some with controversial figures. Given the date and context of this manuscript, the most likely author is Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī (d. 1630), who was Shaykh al-Islām in the Sultanate of Aceh at the time of the composition of this work. The work might also represent the output of one of his students, though in that case, the imprint of Shams al-Dīn on the commentary would still be considerable.

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Cambridge MS Or. Ii.6.45: Tafsīr Sūrat al-Kahf, ‘Cambridge MS Or. Ii.6.45: Commentary on the Qur’an Chapter of the Cave’ Date Approximately 1600 Original Language Jawi Malay Description The date of this work can be estimated by tracing back from known events. The only surviving manuscript once belonged to the prominent

278

tafsīr sūrat al-kahf

Dutch Arabist Thomas Erpenius (d. 1624). Some of his manuscripts had been collected by the Dutch sailor Pieter Willemzoon van Elbinck, who visited Aceh with Dutch expeditions during the first decade of the 17th century. Van Elbinck is probably the person who obtained this manuscript for Erpenius during that decade. A date of composition around the turn of the 17th century is therefore likely. The manuscript consists of 135 folios, of which reference to Christians and Christianity constitutes approximately five per cent scattered throughout the commentary. The text is structured according to the order of the verses of Sūrat al-Kahf, chapter 18 of the Qur’an. Each verse is presented in its original Arabic form followed immediately by a Malay translation, with some exegetical comments. Further exegetical additions in the form of lengthy narrative accounts are inserted after certain key verses. The commentary levels a number of accusations at Christians and Christianity: blasphemy for attributing a son to God; idol worship by Christian kings; unreliability as sources of information on the account of the sleepers in the cave. Thus, in commenting on verse 4, the commentary adds exegetical sections to the Malay rendering of the Qur’an (presented here in parentheses): ‘(And to warn) the unbelievers (who say that God took) for Himself (a child), namely those unbelievers who calumnously say that God had a child, namely the Jews and the Christians. Truly they say those words out of ignorance.’ And further: ‘Then the Christians fell into error, and grievous words of profanity came from their lips, and their kings were unfaithful to the point of worshipping idols and sacrificing all that they ate in the name of idols, not in the name of God.’ Such negative statements are partially offset by more positive comments: some Christians were true believers and shunned blasphemy; some provided Muḥammad with reliable information about the sleepers in the cave. So: ‘But some remained faithful to the religion of Jesus, peace be upon him, by way of asserting the Unity and worshipping God.’ Significance The manuscript containing this commentary is of crucial significance because it represents the earliest surviving example of extended qur’anic exegesis in the Malay language, predating ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf al-Singkilī’s full commentary on the Qur’an, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd, by 60-70 years. The commentary found within Cambridge MS Or. Ii.6.45 is closely based upon two earlier Arabic commentaries: Maʿālim al-tanzīl by al-Baghawī (d. 1117–22) and Lubāb al-ta⁠ʾwīl fī maʿānī al-tanzīl by al-Khāzin (d. 1340).



tafsīr sūrat al-kahf

279

The fact that the Malay commentary has not survived in Southeast Asia, its region of origin, and is only known because of the solitary remaining example held in Cambridge suggests that other copies may have been destroyed in the context of theological polemics launched against the followers of Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī by Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī, Shaykh al-Islām in Aceh from 1637 to 1644. Publications MS Cambridge, University Library – Or. Ii.6.45, 135 fols (c.1600) P.G. Riddell, ‘Camb. MS. Or. Ii.6.45. The oldest surviving qur’anic commentary from Southeast Asia’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16 (2014) 120-39 (contains transliteration and translation of commentaries on selected verses) P.G. Riddell, ‘Earliest qur’anic exegetical activity in the Malay-speaking states’, Archipel 38 (1989) 107-24 (contains transliteration into romanised Malay and discussion of commentary on verse 9, which is key for comment about Christianity in this work) S. van Ronkel, ‘Account of six Malay manuscripts of the Cambridge University Library’, Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 46 (1896) 1-53 (contains a transcription of the commentaries on verses 1-6) Studies A detailed monograph study of this manuscript by P.G. Riddell is forthcoming. P.G. Riddell, ‘Three pioneering Malay works of quranic exegesis’, in D. Pratt et al. (eds), The character of Christian-Muslim encounter, Leiden, 2015, 309-25 P.G. Riddell, ‘Study of the variant readings of the Qur’an in 17th century Aceh, with particular reference to Suura al-Kahf ’, in A.H. Brahim bin A.H. Tengah (ed.), Cetusan Minda Sarjana. Sastra dan Budaya, Brunei, 2014, 53-69 P.G. Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian world. Transmission and responses, Honolulu HI, 2001, pp. 147-60 P.G. Riddell, ‘The transmission of narrative based exegesis in Islam. Al-Baghawi’s use of stories in his commentary on the Qur’an, and a Malay descendent’, in P.G. Riddell and A. Street (eds), Islam. Essays on scripture, thought and society, Leiden, 1997, 57-80 Van Ronkel, ‘Account of six Malay manuscripts’ Peter Riddell

Jacob Cornelisz. van Neck Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck Date of Birth About 1564 Place of Birth Amsterdam Date of Death 15 March 1638 Place of Death Amsterdam

Biography

Jacob Cornelisz. van Neck was born into a prominent family in Amsterdam. Very little is known about his youth except that his father died when he was two years old and his mother when he was about 11. He received a good general education and then special training in nautical sciences, and he became involved in various forms of trade. The oldest company for trade with Southeast Asia selected him as the admiral for its second fleet of eight ships, which left Amsterdam on 1 May 1598. They had a straightforward journey and arrived on 26 November in Banten, West Java. Van Neck returned with four ships to Amsterdam, where he arrived on 26 July 1599, making a round trip of less than 15 months, a record time for the period. The four other ships of the expedition travelled to the spice islands of East Indonesia, Ternate and Banda, and came back in August 1600. While the first expedition of 1595-7 had made no real profit, this second expedition under van Neck made a huge profit of 265%. In addition, it provided much new information on the places to trade in spices. Van Neck then became the admiral for a new expedition, from mid-1600 until July 1603. This trip also made a profit, though it was not as ground-breaking as his first journey. On 11 January 1604, at the age of 39, van Neck married a woman 20 years his junior and the couple had five children. Van Neck never returned to the Indies but had a successful career in trade and politics and held important positions such as mayor of Amsterdam, and other posts involving top national duties. He had grown up in a religiously liberal family and did not show any deep religious sentiment. He refrained from commenting on the conflict around the Synod of Dort (1619), which rejected Arminian doctrines. He is often contrasted with Cornelis de Houtman, the leader of the first



jacob cornelisz. van neck

281

Dutch journey to the East Indies. Cornelis is characterised as rude and undiplomatic, while van Neck is praised as a skilful diplomat and patient manager. Some sections of van Neck’s travelogue can be read as very romantic, even Arcadian, descriptions of the Indonesian landscape. However, in his first report about the 1598-9 voyage to the Indies he says that, when he experienced problems buying food in Madagascar, ‘We tooke the King prisoner, who paide for his ransome a cow and a fat calfe.’ This and other passages, which are omitted from the later preserved manuscript and print edition, show that van Neck also could behave roughly. The phrases ‘friendly farewell’ (vriendelijk affscheid) and ‘peaceful trade’ (minnelyken handel), as used by François Valentijn (Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, Dordrecht, 1724, vol. 1, pp. 174-6), may thus be exaggerated. In the history of the Dutch trading enterprise in the Malay archipelago, the result of the first voyage by van Neck and his companions was that they learned (after the Portuguese) that they could not simply come to the Indies to trade and return home: they had to buy textiles in Southeast India, silk and porcelain in China, and rice and onions in Java to exchange for pepper in Ternate and nutmeg in Banda. They had to become part of an Asian mercantile network and society.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. van Neck, Journael van de tweede reys gedaen by den heer Jacob van Neck naar Oost-Indiën, Amsterdam, 1600 J. Keuning, De tweede schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Jacob Cornelisz. van Neck en Wybrant Warwijck, 1598-1600, The Hague, 1938-42, 5 vols Secondary A. Zuiderweg, ‘ “Wellustiger plaetse en heb ick op ons Reijs noch niet vernomen”. Oost/Indische natuurimpressies’, Indische Letteren 20 (2005) 133-49 H.A. van Foreest and A. de Booy, De vierde schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Jacob Wilkens en Jacob van Neck (1599-1604), The Hague, 1980 H. Terpstra, Jacob van Neck. Amsterdams admiraal en regent, Amsterdam, 1950 H.T. Colenbrander, ‘Jacob van Neck’, Bijdragen en mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap 21 (1900) 194-329

282

jacob cornelisz. van neck

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Journael ofte Dagh-register van de tweede Schipvaert op Oost-Indien, ‘Journal of the second voyage to the East Indies’ Date 1601 Original Language Dutch Description Jacob van Neck wrote an account of the major events of his first trip to the Indonesian archipelago, from 1 May 1598 to 16 July 1599, as a report to the Amsterdam directors of the undertaking. This is often referred to as an account of the ‘second trip’ because it was in fact a follow-up to the first Dutch voyage under the leadership of Cornelis de Houtman (1595-7). The first report of this first voyage undertaken by van Neck (only preserved in English translation, True report, 1599) was completed at the point when only the four ships under his command had returned. It did not refer to the remaining four under van Warwijck, which arrived back in August 1600. After the return of the second half of this extremely successful expedition, the first report was expanded into a more complete account, published in Dutch in 1600 as Journael ofte Dagh-register. This fuller report was further enriched with more material one year later, in a new edition which started with the words Het tweede boeck, or ‘The second book’. It is 186 pages in length and includes 24 drawings. It contains material from various sources, most probably all supplied by staff employed in the undertaking. This ‘second book’ can be taken as the final report of the major voyage of van Neck. It has the tone of a log book and includes a more or less daily account of major events, as well as observations of the geography and culture of the islands visited. It has quite a few drawings of mosques and observations of Muslim practices in the Indonesian archipelago. The final (1601) edition of the Journael ofte Dagh-register contains accounts of Muslim ceremonies and devotions drawn from close contacts and direct observations, together with quotations and references from available literature. However, the direct observations are not from Banten and Tuban, the major harbour locations in Java where the expedition bought spices, but are rather a detailed report of mosque services and a funeral on the island of Banda (pp. 82-90). Some episodes in

jacob cornelisz. van neck

Illustration 7. Annotated view of the town of Gammelamme on the island of Ternate, showing the mosque (F) and church (L), from Journael oft Dagh-register, 1601, p. 40

283

284

jacob cornelisz. van neck

this report can be read as a report of a spontaneous, unbiased dialogue, especially at the prayers during and after burial in the cemetery. For example: ‘When we asked them why they did this, they asked us in turn whether we ourselves did not do the same when any of our people had died. After that we asked them about their prayers and they told us that they prayed so that the deceased would not rise again from death’ (p. 90). At the island of Ternate, the king came aboard the Dutch vessel, but before sunset he had to return ‘to say his prayers’ (p. 107). This king is also quoted as an enemy of the Portuguese, and so he considered the Dutch ‘as sent by God to him’. Elsewhere (pp. 136-7), there is an account of a ceremonial procession to the mosque for circumcision, but the act of cutting the foreskin is not described. Probably the Dutch only related what they actually saw. Besides such direct observations, there is a selection (pp. 123-31) from the Masāʾil, the questions put by the Jew ʿAbdullāh ibn Salām to the Prophet Muḥammad and included in the collection of the so-called Toledo-texts, printed in 1543 by Theodore Bibliander together with a Latin translation of the Qur’an. The travel account tells us that this section was taken from a Portuguese translation (and not from a Malay text, such as was later published by Pijper in 1924). It concentrates on cosmological questions and ends with a story about the ban on drinking wine. This is followed by a story of the ban on pork from an unknown source: one day the Prophet’s wife ʿĀʾisha had prepared a perfumed bath for the Prophet, but a pig entered the house and polluted the water. Thereupon the Prophet declared that Muslims should not be allowed to eat pork, because the pig is an unclean animal. This mix of observations and readings from Portuguese sources about Islam gives some kind of exotic flavour to the story. The first visitors, of course, had their prejudices about Islam, but in the Indonesian reality the fresh impression of the colourful and outlandish atmosphere was stronger than dogmatic judgments. Significance The voyage by Jacob van Neck and company was the first economically successful Dutch venture to the East Indies. The expedition not only resulted in substantial profit, but also brought back knowledge about the sea-route east of Java, directly to the most important spice islands. The final account of the voyage was often reprinted in Dutch and also appeared in English, German and French editions.



jacob cornelisz. van neck

285

It gives a generally sympathetic image of the Muslim peoples in eastern Indonesia. Muslims are presented as respected foreigners, living at a great distance from the Dutch traders, who were arriving here for the first time. Because the Portuguese were the great competitors, and even enemies, of the Dutch, the Indonesian Muslims became friends of the Dutch, at least in the field of business. This may have added to the rather rosy and romantic image in accounts of what happened in mosques and at Muslim cemeteries. One may even speculate whether the later theory that these Indonesians were not truly Muslims has its origin in the factual and non-judgemental image generated by the first Dutch visitors to these territories. The most widely used modern Indonesian ‘National History of Indonesia’ includes the undertaking of van Neck and company under the title ‘reactions of the Muslim sultanates on the Western penetration’, but considers the specific voyage of van Neck as a peaceful encounter (Tjandrasasmita, Jaman Pertumbuhan, ch. 5, esp. pp. 352-4). Publications MS The Hague, Dutch National Archives – Archieven van Compagnieën op Oost-Indië 1594-1603, no. 41, ‘Reisverhaal gesteld door Admiraal Jacob van Neck voor Bewindhebberen, 1 mei 1598-19 juli 1599’ (1598-9) J. van Neck, True report of the gainefull, prosperous and speedy voiage to Iaua in the East indies, performed by a fleete of eight ships of Amsterdam: which set forth from Texell in Holland, the First of Maie 1598, Stilo Nouo, whereof foure returned againe the 19. of Iuly anno 1599, in lesse than 15. Moneth, the other foure went forward from Iaua for the Moluccaes, London, 1599 (English trans.; repr. in Keuning, De tweede schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië, vol. 2, pp. 28-41; a German translation of this first report is also included in Keuning, vol. 2, pp. 12-27, from a collection of travel accounts, published in 1617); STC 14478 (digitalised version available through EEBO) J. van Neck, [Het tweede boeck]. Journael oft Dagh-register, inhoudende een waarachtich verhael ende historische vertellinghe vande reyse, gedaen door de acht schepen van Amstelredamme, gheseylt inden maent martii 1598, onder ’t beleydt vanden admirael Iacob Cornelisz. Neck ende Wybrandt van Warwijck als vice-admirael, Amsterdam, 1600, 1601, 61 pp. (reprints 1619, 1645, 1648, 1650, 1663; facsimile reprint, Amsterdam, 1971); Koninklijke Bibliotheek 357 F 29 (digitalised version available through EEB)

286

jacob cornelisz. van neck

J. van Neck, The iournall, or dayly register, containing a true manifestation, and historicall declaration of the voyage, accomplished by eight shippes of Amsterdam, vnder the conduct of Iacob Corneliszen Neck Admirall, & Wybrandt van Warwick Vice-Admirall, which sayled from Amsterdam the first day of March, 1598: Shewing the course they kept, and what other notable matters happened vunto them in the sayd voyage, London, 1601 (English trans.; repr. Amsterdam, 1974); STC 18417 (digitalised version available through EEBO) J. van Neck, Le second livre, iournal ou comptoir, contenant le vray discovrs et narration historiqve, du voiage faict par les huict navires d’Amsterdam, au mois de mars l’an 1598, sous la conduit de l’admiral Iaques Corneille Necq, et du vice-admiral Wibrant de Warwicq. De leur voiage, & choses plus memorables, eux audit voiage sur venues, de leur riche charge, & sain retour. Aussi est icy adiouté un Vocabulaire des mots Iavans, Malaites & Flamengs, Amsterdam, 1601 (French trans.); Koninklijke Bibliotheek 344 G 13 (digitalised version available through EEB) J. van Neck, Ander Schiffart. In die Orientalische Indien / So die Holländischen Schiff (welche im Martio 1598. außgefaren/ davon die 2. letzste im Mayo 1600. mit grossem Schatz von Würtz wider kommen seind) verricht, Nürnberg, 1602 (German trans.); urn:nbn:de:gbv: 23-drucke/t-82-4f-helmst-2s5 (digitalised version available through Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek) Studies E. van Vugt, Nieuw Zwartboek van Nederland, Soesterberg, 2011, pp. 54-6 J.S. Aritonang, Sejarah Perjumpaan Kristen dan Islam di Indonesia, Jakarta, 2004, pp. 51-4 K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 1993, pp. 31-4 L. Blussé and J. de Moor, Nederlanders overzee, Franeker, 1983, pp. 109-18 U. Tjandrasasmita, Jaman Pertumbuhan dan Perkembangan Kerajaankerajaan Islam di Indonesia, Jakarta, 1976 C.R. Boxer, The Dutch seaborne empire, London, 1965, pp. 22-3, 52-3 B.H.M. Vlekke, Nusantara, a history of Indonesia, The Hague, 19656, pp. 111-14 H.J. de Graaf, Geschiedenis van Indonesië, The Hague, 1949, pp. 141-3 Keuning, De tweede schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië G.F. Pijper, Het boek der duizend vragen, Leiden, 1924 Karel Steenbrink

Bukhari Jawhari or Johori Bukhari Jawhari, Bukhari Johori Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown Date of Death Unknown Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Nothing is known about this author apart from his name, which in Jawi script can be read as either ‘Bukhari Jawhari’ or ‘Bukhari Johori’.

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Tāj al-salaṭīn, ‘The crown of kings’ Date 1603/4 Original Language Jawi Malay

Description

Tāj al-salaṭīn, most probably composed in Aceh, contains guidelines for kings and common people living within an Islamic polity. The work was dedicated to the Acehnese Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Riʿāya Shāh (r. 1589-1604). The sultan was known as a great admirer of Sufism, for which he was given the title ‘Sayyid al-Mukammil’. Tāj al-salaṭīn contains 24 chapters, comprising 56 folios in the British Library MS 12378. Chapter 21 consi­ ders the basis of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. In chapter 21, Bukhari mentions 20 guidelines for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims under an Islamic polity, closely based on the so-called ‘Pact of ʿUmar’ that is usually attributed to the second Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 634-44). The first three of these guidelines deal with the idols used by unbelievers as the objects of their religious adoration. Guideline 4 instructs unbelievers to serve Muslim travellers. Guideline 5 tells unbelievers not to send spies (sulu) into Muslim lands. If spies come from other unbelieving regions, they should not be given hospitality. Guideline 6 tells unbelievers to allow family members to convert to Islam if they so wish. Guidelines 7 and 8 require unbelievers to pay respect to Muslims in

288

bukhari jawhari or johori

shared areas as well as in the lands of unbelievers. Guidelines 9, 10, 12, 14 and 16 specify the methods of differentiating the physical appearance of Muslims and unbelievers. Guidelines 11 and 13 discourage unbelievers from keeping weapons at home and from selling and consuming alcoholic drinks Guideline 15 requires them not to show their misconduct publicly. Guidelines 17 and 18 instruct both Muslims and unbelievers on matters of everyday life, including burying or cremating the dead. Guideline 19 informs unbelievers not to mourn the death of family members publicly. Guideline 20 tells unbelievers not to oppress Muslim slaves. The chapter closes with a reassurance that unbelievers will be given proper protection by the law for their compliance and respectful attitude. Punishment also applies for those who disobey. Significance Although this work does not actually discuss Christian-Muslim relations by name, it is particularly relevant given the numbers of Europeans, who were predominantly Christian, coming to Southeast Asia from the early 16th century, and increasing interaction between the two faiths. It influenced some Southeast Asian Muslim rulers and scholars in their dealings with Christians in the following centuries. Publications The following list of MSS of Tāj al-salaṭīn represents an updated version of that found in Mulyadi, Hikayat Indraputra, p. 293: MS Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale – 21507 MS Jakarta, Perpustakaan Nasional – Bataviaasch Genootschap 122 MS Jakarta, Perpustakaan Nasional – Bataviaasch Genootschap 286A MS Jakarta, Perpustakaan Nasional – Van der Wall 65 MS Jakarta, Perpustakaan Nasional – Brandes 394 MS Kuala Lumpur, Perpustakaan Negara – 1589 MS Kuala Lumpur, Perpustakaan Negara – 2530 MS Kuala Lumpur, Perpustakaan Negara – 4078 MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 1692 MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 3053 MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 1918 (1) MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 1759 MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 3234 (2) MS Leiden, University Library – Oph. 11 MS Leiden, University Library – Oph. 94 MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 10.858 MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 6719 (1)



bukhari jawhari or johori

289

MS London, BL – Add. 12378 MS London, BL – Or. 13295 MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Raffles Malay 17B MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Raffles Malay 42B MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Raffles Malay 64 MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Maxwell 13 MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Maxwell 17A MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Maxwell 55 MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Malay 117 MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – 21039 MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – 36565 MS Oxford, Institute of Social Anthropology – Skeat 18 MS held by Ministry of Education and Culture, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia MSS in Javanese, Kraton Yogyakarta – W. 288 (1851), W. 289 (1851/2), W. 290 (1900), W. 291 (1831), W. 291a (1869), W. 291b (1906), and W. 291c (date unknown) (all copies probably based on the Javanese translation by Yasadipura I) MSS and printed editions in Javanese – Museum Sonobudoyo Yogyakarta – L332 (1879), L334 (date unknown), L335 (1853), L336-1 (1882), L337 (date unknown), L338 (date unknown), L339 (date unknown), L340 (1895), L341 (1842), L342 (1847), L343 (1879), L347-1 (date unknown) (all copies probably based on the Javanese translation by Yasadipura I) J. Jusuf (ed.), Tajussalatin, Jakarta, 1979 K. Hussain (ed.), Taj us-salatin, Kuala Lumpur, 1966 A. Marre, Makota radja-radja, ou la couronne des rois/par Bokhari de Djohore, Paris, 1878 (French trans.) R. van Eysinga, Tadj oes-salatin. De kroon aller koningen, Batavia, 1827 (edition and Dutch trans.) Studies A. Gallop, ‘Another Malay “Mirror for Princes”’, Asian and African Studies blog, 2013; http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-andafrican/2013/10/another-malay-mirror-for-princes.html S.P. Daulay, Taj al-Salatin karya Bukhari al-Jauhari. Sebuah kajian filologi dan refleksi historis, Jakarta, 2011 D. Lombard, Kerajaan Aceh zaman Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607-1636), Jakarta, 2006, pp. 215-18 (Indonesian trans. by Winarsih Arifin)

290

bukhari jawhari or johori

Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi, ‘Kisah pelayaran ʿAbdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi dari Singapura sampai ke Kelantan’, in A. Sweeney (ed.), Karya lengkap Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi, Jakarta, 2005, pp. 153, 167 V. Braginsky, The heritage of traditional Malay literature. A historical survey of genres, writings and literary views, Leiden, 2004, pp. 431-49 V. Braginsky, ‘Tajus Salatin (‘the Crown of Sultans’) of Bukhari al-Jauhari as a canonical work and an attempt to create a Malay literary canon’, in D. Smyth (ed.), The canon in Southeast Asian literatures. Literatures of Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, Richmond UK, 2000, 183-209 T. Abdullah, ‘The formation of a political tradition in the Malay world’, in A. Reid (ed.), The making of an Islamic political discourse in Southeast Asia, Clayton, 1993, 35-58 S.W. Rudjiati Mulyadi, Hikayat Indraputra. A Malay romance, Dordrecht, 1983, p. 293 T. Iskandar, ‘Bokhari al-Jauhari dan Tajus-salatin’, Majalah Dewan Bahasa 9 (1965) 107-13 Ervan Nurtawab

Diego de Pantoja Diego Pantoja, Didaco Pantoia, Didacus de Pantogia, Jacobus Pantogia, Jacob Pantogiae, Pang Diwo, Pang Die or Shunyang Date of Birth 1571 Place of Birth Valdemoro, Spain Date of Death 1618 Place of Death Macau

Biography

Born in Valdemoro (Spain), Diego de Pantoja joined the Society of Jesus in 1589 and was ordained during the 1590s in Toledo. He arrived in Macau in 1597, and then moved to Beijing on the first mission there in 1601. In 1611, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Rites to begin translating European astronomical works, setting a trend for later Jesuits to work within the fields of astronomy and mathematics. In 1617, an astronomical controversy headed by Chinese scholars led to the persecution of the Jesuits and their exile. De Pantoja died in Macau the following year.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Diego de Pantoja, Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China, y particulares sucesos que tuvieron, y de cosas muy notables que vieron en el mismos reyno, Seville: Alonso Rodriguez Gamarra, 1605 Secondary R.R. Ellis, ‘Representations of China and Europe in the writings of Diego de Pantoja. Accommodating the East or privileging the West?’, in C.H. Lee (ed.), Western visions of the Far East in a transpacific age, 1522-1657, London, 2016, 101-16 Qiong Zhang, Making the New World their own. Chinese encounters with Jesuit science in the age of discovery, Leiden, 2015 R.R. Ellis, They need nothing. Hispanic-Asian encounters of the colonial period, Toronto, 2012

292

diego de pantoja

C. Jami, P. Engelfriet and G. Blue (eds), Statecraft and intellectual renewal in late Ming China. The cross-cultural synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), Leiden, 2001 Zhang Kai, Diego de Pantoja and China (1597-1618). A study on the Society of Jesus’s ‘policy of adaptation’, Beijing, 1997 A. Waltner, ‘Demerits and deadly sins. Jesuit moral tracts in late Ming China’, in S.B. Schwartz (ed.), Implicit understandings. Observing, reporting, and reflecting on the encounter between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era, Cambridge, 1994, 422-48

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China, y particulares sucesos que tuvieron, y de cosas muy notables que vieron en el mismos reyno, ‘Account of the entry of some Fathers of the Society of Jesus into China, of the singular events that occurred and the remarkable things they saw in the kingdom’ Litterae P. Jacobi Pantogiae e Societate Jesu ad P. Ludovicum Guzmanum provinciae Toletanae praepostium, datae Pachino, urbe regia Sinarum, 1602, 7 Idus Martias, ‘A letter of father Diego de Pantoja, one of the Company of Jesus, to Father Luys de Guzman, provincial in the province of Toledo’ Date 1605 Original Language Spanish Description In 1602, Diego de Pantoja dispatched a letter to Luís de Guzmán in Toledo, which was published in 1605 as Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la compañia de Iesús en la China, and which subsequently featured in a number of compilations of letters and reports. The 1605 version was 131 folios in length, but the reprint the following year was 183 pages. According to the reprint of Samuel Purchas’s English



diego de pantoja

293

translation in his Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes (1906, vol. 12, pp. 331-410), de Pantoja notes that reports spreading from the Mughal Empire about the kingdom then known as Cathay suggested to the Jesuits in China that Cathay and China were a single kingdom, thereby invalidating extant European geographical understandings and maps (p. 362). According to de Pantoja, conversations with Moorish and Turkish traders allowed the Jesuits to affirm that Cathay and China were the same place, and that a desert divided China from other kingdoms in the West (pp. 333-4). He describes Moorish and Turkish caravans in China at length, noting that the traders already had a knowledge of Europe (p. 362). De Pantoja argues that Moors and Turks visit China every five years in the name of their respective monarchs in order to pay tribute to the Chinese leadership, but that they use fraudulent letters to gain passage through the country (p. 362). Such letters and the travellers themselves deceive the Chinese leadership into thinking that the leaders of the known world acknowledge their vassalage to China, although it is common knowledge amongst the Chinese that the reality is somewhat different (p. 362). He notes that, in spite of their fraudulent credentials, these caravans and travellers are permitted to come to China and are maintained luxuriously at government expense because of the value of their trade, which consists mostly of precious stones (pp. 362-63). De Pantoja also makes some comments on the origins and nature of Islam in China, dating its entry to the Mongol invasions (from 1205 onwards, after which Muslims were able to maintain their teachings and keep their own places of worship (p. 384)). He notes that Muslims generally do not bear arms, as doing so would be considered dishonest and they are without use (p. 384); the Muslims prefer to fight hand-to-hand when settling disputes (p. 384). He also refers to a prominent Turk who, some 40 years earlier, had presented a previous ruler with the gift of two lions, but notes that, because the man is not someone of learning, people avoid him (p. 398). De Pantoja’s references to Islam are descriptive and for the most part lack an overt anti-Islamic tone, although the idea that Muslims entered the country with false credentials, and the story of the avoided Turk, could be construed as anti-Islamic. But the description is not so much about decrying Islamic practices or truth claims as about portraying the realities, as perceived by de Pantoja, of the Moorish and Turkish caravans and residents.

294

diego de pantoja

Although lacking anti-Islamic tone, the text is neither pro-Islamic nor admiring of Islam. For the most part, it focuses on the failures of European geographical knowledge and cartography, failures that had been corrected by Muslim traders and to which a value judgement is not applied. In Purchas’s translation, the terms ‘Moor’, ‘Turk’, and ‘Law of Mahomet’ are used in reference to Muslims and Islam. These appear to be accurate translations of the original Spanish language text, which uses the terms Moro, Turco and Mahoma. Significance This is a very early source written by Christians on Muslims in China proper. The almost non-judgmental treatment of Islam is particularly interesting, although it must be noted that the text was written before the Jesuit-Muslim conflicts of the later part of the 16th century, so it might be possible to assume that relations at this time were fairly amicable. Linked to this is the admission that Muslims had attained a greater geographical understanding, which assisted with changing European understandings. Such an admission would be quite unusual in later texts. This is perhaps connected to de Pantoja’s early life in Spain, where the Muslim population would have provided him with greater contact and understanding of Muslims and their customs. The descriptions of Muslim life in China are fairly extensive in comparison with other texts of the early 17th century, although, like its counterparts, the text focuses more on other religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Judaism. Almost identical descriptions are found in the works of Matteo Ricci, Nicolas Trigault and Bento de Gois, suggesting either that the text had a wide influence after its composition or that the ideas, observations and understandings within it were common to the Jesuits in China. Whether these are accurate summations of Muslim life remains to be seen, but some aspects are certainly embellished or misunderstood, such as the concept that Muslim traders had somehow duped the emperor, and the idea that Muslims had existed in China since the Yuan dynasty (they had in fact arrived earlier than this). Like other early 17th-century texts, concepts of religious identity do not seem to have fully developed, and so ethnic terminology is more prominent.



diego de pantoja

295

Publications Diego de Pantoja, Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China, y particulares sucesos que tuvieron, y de cosas muy notables que vieron en el mismos reyno, Sevilla: Alonso Rodriguez Gamarra, 1605; Valencia: Iuan Chrysostomo Garrizb, 1606; res-5643-p (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) Diego de Pantoja, ‘Litterae P. Jacobi Pantogiae e Societate Jesu ad P. Ludovicum Guzmanum provinciae Toletanae praepostium, datae Pachino, urbe regia Sinarum, 1602, 7 Idus Martias’, in Litterae Societatis Jesu, anno MDCII, et MDCIII e Sinis, Molucis, Japona datae, progressum rei Christianae in ijs oris, allaque memoratu incunda complexae, ed. Diego de Pantoja and Diego Antunez, Mainz: Balthasarus Lippius, 1607, 1-123 (Latin trans.); Jes. 557-14 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Diego de Pantoja, Advis du Reverend Pere Iaques Pantoie de la Compagnie de Jésus envoyé de Paquin Cité de la Chine, au R.P. Loys de Gusman, de la mesme Compagnie: sur le succès de la religion chrestienne au royaume de la Chine: de l’entrée d’aucuns pères de ladite Compagnie en la cour du roy, et de plusierus chefes memorables, qu’ils ont veu en ce pais là, trans. Michel Coyssard, Arras: Guillaume de la Riviere, 1607 (French trans.; repr. Lyon: Pierre Rugaud, 1607; Rennes: Tite Harran, 1607; Roven: Roinain de Beauvais, 1608) Diego de Pantoja and Aegidius Albertinus (trans.), Histori Und eigent­ liche beschreibung/ erstlich was gestalt/ vermittelst sonderbarer Hülff und Schickung deß Allmächtigen/ dann auch der Ehrwürdigen Vätter der Societet Jesu gebrauchten Fleiß/ und außgestandener Mühe/ Arbeit und Gefahr/ numehr und vor gar wenig Jahren hero/ das Evangelium und Lehr Christi in dem grossen und gewaltigen Königreich China eingeführt/ gepflantzt und geprediget wirdt: Am andern/ wie sie alle andere Politische und Weltliche Sachen unnd Gelegenheiten aldort beschaffen/ befunden; Alles lustig und nutz­ lich zulesen. Durch Egidium Albertinum, auß einem Italienischen / und auß besagtem Königreich China herauß geschicktem Tractätl verteutscht, Munich: Adam Berg, 1608 (German trans.; digitalised version available through http://www.univie.ac.at/Geschichte/ China-Bibliographie/blog/2010/04/21/diego-de-pantoja-aegidiusalbertinus-histori-und-eigentliche-beschreibung/)

296

diego de pantoja

Diego de Pantoja, Relatione dell’ entrata d’alunci padre della Compagnia di Giesu nella China, et de’ particulari succesi, che loro occorsero, et delle cose notabili, che videro nel medesimo regno: Lettera del padre Diego di Pantogia della Compagnia di Giesu al padre Luigi di Guzman provinciale nella provincia di Toledo, Rome: Bartolomeo Zannetti, 1607, Parma, 1607 (Italian trans.) Diego de Pantoja, ‘A letter of father Diego de Pantoja, one of the Company of Iesu, to father Luys de Guzman, provinciall in the province of Toledo’, in Hakluytus posthumus, ed. Samuel Purchas, London: William Stansby, 1625, vol. 3, 350-79 (English trans.; repr. in Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906, vol. 12, 331-410) Studies Ellis, ‘Representations of China and Europe’ A. Chan, Chinese books and documents from the Jesuit Archives in Rome. A descriptive catalogue, London, 20152 Ellis, They need nothing Zhang Kai, Diego de Pantoja and China Waltner, ‘Demerits and deadly sins’ James Harry Morris

John Davis Date of Birth Approximately 1550 Place of Birth Sandridge, Devon Date of Death 1604 Place of Death Waters off Bintang Island, Singapore

Biography

John Davis, the eldest son of a squire, was born around 1550 in the village of Sandridge, Devon, near the south coast of England. He obviously had a close association with the sea from his infancy, and he went to sea as a boy, learning his trade and doing coastal surveying from a very young age. Once he had risen to command his own vessels, Davis initially focussed his seafaring efforts on searching out the Northwest Passage, but after three expeditions he turned his attentions to the east. The reason for this change is unknown, although he may simply have desired a new challenge. Whatever the reason, 1598 saw him embarking on a Dutch-led expedition to the East Indies. The voyage took Davis and his crew around the Cape of Good Hope, up the east side of Africa and on to western India, then on further, through the Straits of Malacca to Macau and Canton. He was enthralled by his visit to Aceh. In a letter to the Earl of Essex in 1600, Davis described the mix of ethnicities he met whilst stopping off in the town. Davis returned to England in 1600 and the following year set off again, with James Lancaster as the chief pilot of his expedition, the first of the East India Company, which landed in Aceh on 5 June 1602. Unfortunately, Davis’ own observations were lost, so no record of his thoughts on Acehnese life exists for this second visit. However, the voyage was recorded in the official ship’s journals and it was clearly a brilliant success, for Lancaster returned with both trade agreements and alliances from Aceh and Bantam. This success brought Lancaster a knighthood from the newly crowned James I. In 1604, Davis set sail once again, for the last time, with an expedition to the East Indies under the command of Sir Edward Michelborne. Davis’ expedition arrived in Aceh at a moment of great political turmoil, and

298

john davis

the unknown recorder of the expedition described the war of succession in a very brief, almost cursory passage, which recounted that Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s two sons were warring for control over Aceh, the elder son keeping his father prisoner whilst he fought his younger brother. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the expedition quickly moved on. Davis was killed two months after leaving Aceh by Japanese pirates he had captured as they tried to take over his ship.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary A.H. Markham (ed.), The voyages and works of John Davis, the navigator, London, 1880 Secondary R. Freeman and E. Preston, ‘John Davis 1543-1605. The master navigator from the Dart’, Paper 33, Dartmouth History Research Group, 2007 M. Hicks, art. ‘Davis, John (c. 1550-1605)’, ODNB C. Markham, A life of John Davis, the navigator, 1550-1605. Discoverer of the Davis Straits, London, 1889

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations The voyages and works of John Davis the navigator Date 1598-1600, 1604 Original Language English Description The voyages and works of John Davis the navigator is a collection of journals and letters sent by Davis, recording the events of his various voyages and the peoples he met. The passages relating to Aceh are included in voyages described on pp. 132-85 of Markham’s 1880 edition, which runs to 392 pages. His consideration of Aceh provides a window into his encounters with Acehnese, Arabs, Chinese and ‘Rumos’. In the accompanying notes to Davis’ letter, written by Markham, the latter points to the term ‘Rumos’ as referring to people connected with the Turkish ‘Sultanate of Rum’, probably descendants of mixed marriages between local Acehnese and Ottoman visitors. Davis was clearly interested in the culture and politics of Aceh. His descriptions, even down to the prevalence of ornate cannons at the doorways of the homes of the prominent merchant oligarchs, match those of other European travellers such as the Frenchman Augustin de Beaulieu.



john davis

299

Indeed, Davis’ description of the despotic Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Riʿāya Shāh Sayyid al-Mukammil (r. 1588-1604) and his ruthless suppression of all who would oppose his rule is certainly consistent with the histories found in other sources. However, it is somewhat out of step with the Hikayat Aceh, the panegyric chronicle recounting the exploits of Sultan Iskandar Muda (r. 1607-36), which described the Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn in more favourable terms. During his time in Aceh, Davis clearly tried to understand some of the religious customs in the state. His brief descriptions are largely dispassionate; he observes that ‘Mahometists pray with beads as the Papists do’ and was also impressed that ‘[t]hese people boast themselves to come of Ismael and Hagar, and can reckon the genealogy of the Bible perfectly’. He shows clear interest in the burial customs of both the common people (‘with the head towards Mecca’) and the kings (‘where every grave hath a piece of Gold at the head’) (p. 151). His remarks suggest that he had not simply observed, but had spoken to Muslims in Aceh about their faith and customs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, he describes Islam and its practices in terms familiar from his own religio-cultural background: ‘They have an Archbishop and Spiritual dignities’, a description of the Shaykh al-Islām of the time, Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī (d. 1630), and the ʿulamāʾ (religious scholars). Furthermore, his Christian points of reference are evident in his observation that ‘[o]nce every yeare they have a custome that the King with all his Noblemen and whole pompe of his lande must goe to the Church to looke if the Messias bee come, which happened at our being here’ (p. 152). Significance The importance to Christian-Muslim relations of The voyages and works of John Davis lies in the fascinating and relatively detailed account he gives of life in Aceh in a period of considerable turmoil and change in the province. Furthermore, Davis’ spirit of open religious enquiry without recourse to polemical discussion makes his observations all the more valuable as a reliable source. Publications MS London, BL – 36674, fol. 58 (1600) MS London, BL – Sloane 3668, fols 156b, 157 (1606) Markham, The voyages and works of John Davis; digitalised version available through Google; https://archive.org/details/voyagesand works00wriggoog

300

john davis

Studies A. Cotterell, A history of Southeast Asia, Singapore, 2014 N. Green, Sufism. A global history, Chichester, 2012 P.J.S. Pinto, The Portuguese and the Straits of Melaka, 1575-1619. Power, trade and diplomacy, Singapore, 2012 S. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700. A political and economic history, Chichester, 2012 M. Laffan, The makings of Indonesian Islam. Orientalism and the makings of a Sufi Past, Princeton NJ, 2011 R.M. Feener, P. Daly and A. Reid, Mapping the Acehnese past, Leiden, 2011 A. Graf, S. Schröter and E. Wieringa (eds), Aceh. History, politics and culture, Singapore, 2010 V. Braginsky and B. Murtagh, The portrayal of foreigners in Indonesian and Malay literature. Essays on the ethnic ‘other’, Ann Arbor MI, 2007 A. Azra, Islam in the Indonesian world. An account of institutional formation, Bandung, 2006 A. Reid (ed.), Verandah of violence. The background to the Aceh problem, Singapore, 2006 Y. Saby, Islam and social change. The role of the ulama in Acehnese society, Bangi, Malaysia, 2005 A. Reid, Charting the shape of early modern Southeast Asia, Bangkok, 2000 A. Reid, Witness to Sumatra. A travellers’ anthology, Kuala Lumpur, 1995 Markham, Life of John Davis Sean Oliver-Dee

Matteo Ricci Li Madou, Xitai, Qingtai, Xijiang, Matthaeus Riccius, Matthaeus Ricci Date of Birth 1552 Place of Birth Marcerata, Italy Date of Death 1610 Place of Death Beijing

Biography

Matteo Ricci was an Italian Jesuit, born in Marcerata in 1552. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1571 and arrived in Goa in 1578, where he was ordained. Alessandro Valignano (Chinese: Fan Lian, 1539-1606), the Visitor overseeing the Jesuits’ East Asian missions, sent him to Macau to learn Chinese. Ricci became one of the first Jesuit missionaries to open the mission to China outside of the port of Macau, gaining permission to reside in Zhaoqing in 1583, and Shaozhou in 1589. He invented a system of romanising the Chinese alphabet, and in the late 1590s was able to visit Beijing. He was the head of the Jesuit mission to China from 1597 to 1610, returning to Beijing in 1601 to obtain imperial permission to spread Christianity. Ricci referred to Muslims in his mission reports, in which he tried to make sense of their presence in China and blamed them for spreading rumours of the missionaries’ links to Iberian colonial expansion. In 1596, Ricci published Xi guo ji fa, an essay on mnemonics, edited by Zhu Dinghan and Alfonso Vagnoni (Chinese: Gao Yizhi) and reprinted in 1625. In this, he uses the example of a Muslim woman in one of his memory aids (Zhu Weizheng, Li Madou, p. 146). In 1602, he spoke with a group of Muslim merchants, who informed him of Christians present in the north-west of China (Spence, Memory palace, p. 120). In his 1602 Kun yu wan guo quan tu, also known as the Mappamundi, a map of the world constructed with the assistance of Li Zhizao using European techniques, Ricci fails to provide details on places important to Islam such as Arabia, Mecca, Medina and Istanbul, portraying Christianity as the primary Western religion. Despite this, the work became important in both China and Japan, and was used by Chinese Muslims alongside other geographical and scientific works by Ricci and Li such as Qian kun ti yi (1608) in the construction of later works.

302

matteo ricci

Illustration 8. Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi, from Toonneel van China, 1668, plate facing p. 138 (Dutch translation of Athanasius Kircher, China illustrata, trans. J.H. Glazemaaker)



matteo ricci

303

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Matteo Ricci (Li Madou) and Zhu Dinghan, Xi guo ji fa, 1625 (repr. in Wu Xiangjiang (ed.), Tian zhu jiao dong chu an wen xian, Taibei: Xuesheng shuju, 1965, pp. 1-70; and in Zhu Weizheng (ed.), Li Madou zhong wen zhu yi ji, Hong Kong: Xianggang cheng shi da xue chubanshe, 2001, pp. 79-214; editions at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, and BNF; trans (German), Michael Lackner (Lang Mixie), Das vergessene Gedächtnis. Die jesuitische mnemotechnische Abhandlung ‘Xi guo ji fa’. Übersetzung und Kommentar, Stuttgart, 1986; digitalised version of the text available from BNF: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9006393v) Matteo Ricci (Li Madou), Kun yu wan guo quan tu, 1602 (repr. in Zhu Weizheng, Li Madou zhong wen zhu yi ji, Hong Kong: Xianggang cheng shi da xue chubanshe, 2001, pp. 215-78; Italian trans., P.M. Delia, Matteo Ricci, il mappamondo cinese del P. Matteo Ricci, Vatican City, 1938; English trans., L. Giles, ‘Translations from the Chinese world map of Father Ricci’, Geographical Journal 52 (1918) 367-85; 53 (1919) 19-30 Matteo Ricci (Li Madou) and Li Zhizao, Qian kun ti yi, 1608 (repr. in Zhu Weizheng, Li Madou zhong wen zhu yi ji, Hong Kong: Xianggang cheng shi da xue chubanshe, 2001, pp. 599-640 Secondary D.A. Madigan, ‘Global visions in contestation. Jesuits and Muslims in the age of empires’, in T. Banchoff and J. Casanova (eds), The Jesuits and globalization. Historical legacies and contemporary challenges, Washington DC, 2016, 69-91 J.W. Witek, ‘Matteo Ricci, 1552-1610’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Grand Rapids MI, 1988; http://www.bdcc online.net/en/stories/r/ricci-matteo.php Z. Ben-Dor Benite, ‘  “Like the Hebrews in Spain”. The Jesuit encounter with Muslims in China and the problem of cultural change’, Al-Qanṭara 36 (2015) 503-30 Z. Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Western Gods meet in the East”. Shapes and contexts of the Muslim-Jesuit dialogue in early modern China’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55 (2012) 517-46 M. Fontana, Matteo Ricci. A Jesuit in the Ming court, Lanham MD, 2011 R. Po-Chia Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City. Matteo Ricci, 1552-1610, Oxford, 2010 A.C. Ross, A vision betrayed. The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742, Maryknoll NY, 1994 J. Spence, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci, London, 1985

304

matteo ricci

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Letters and reports Date 1600-10 Original Language Italian Description In his 1605 report on the discovery of the Kaifeng Jews, Ricci writes that the recently discovered groups of Christians in north-west China had declined in number due to suspicions sown by Muslims. Clarifying this point, he states that Muslims are everywhere the enemies of the missionaries (Ricci, Letters, pp. 86-7). In the same report, he describes the ways the Chinese refer to the foreign (Abrahamic) religious groups, which they view as extremely similar in nature (p. 87). Each is given the common title of Hui hui, to which different suffixes are added: Muslims are referred to as the ‘Hui hui of the three laws’, Jews as the ‘Hui hui who extract the sinews from their meat’, and the Christians as ‘Hui hui of the word ten’ (the cross) (p. 87). In a further letter from the same year, which records Ricci’s meeting with a Jew named Ai Tian, he notes that ‘Moors’ outnumber the Jewish and Christian remnants of previous migrations and missions, and refers again to the aforementioned terminological similarities used for referring to the Abrahamic religions (Ricci, Letters, pp. 468-70; Ricci, Opere storiche, vol. 2, pp. 289-93). In two other missionary reports, Ricci notes that his Tian zhu shi yi, published in 1603 and 1607, had a wide readership amongst the ‘Saracens’ and ‘Moors’, seemingly due to its consistency with their doctrines and its strengths in comparison with other available Chinese texts (quoted in Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Western Gods meet in the East” ’, p. 518). His final notes on Islam feature in a passage discussing Chinese idolatry (Ricci, ‘Final assessment’, p. 91), which opens by stating that Islam is an evil that exists alongside China’s idolatrous religion. He reports that a large number of Muslims have entered China, where they have multiplied and spread by means of procreation. He notes that the Muslims do not attempt to proselytise and live subject to Chinese laws, but are held in low regard by the Chinese despite being treated as natives. He also argues that the Muslim literati abandon their beliefs and practices upon receiving rank. For Ricci, Islam as a religion is of little importance. It is the existence of Jewish and Christian communities that is of primary importance to him.



matteo ricci

305

Significance Although Ricci’s texts are to a certain extent anti-Islamic in approach, they are not polemical. Rather, they are primarily descriptive works tinged with anti-Islamic negativity. Furthermore, his texts from the early 17th century illustrate a movement away from his earlier claims and conventions. While Ricci still regarded the religion as evil, he did not refer to the idea, present in his earlier work, that Muslim rumours hampered the Jesuit mission. Moreover, there is a shift in his use of terminology. In late 16th-century works, he refers to Muslims as ‘Moors’ (Mauri) or ‘Muḥammadan Saracens’ (Saraceni Macometani), affirming the separateness of Muslims from the Chinese. However, in his final text, he uses the term ‘followers of Islam’ (della legge macomettana) (Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Like the Hebrews” ’, p. 420). Ricci’s work was copied and added to by a number of his successors. Publications Matteo Ricci (Li Madou), Letters on Kaifeng Jews, in Matteo Ricci, Opere storiche del P. Matteo Ricci, S. I., ed. P.T. Venturi, 2 vols, Marcerata, 1911, vol. 1, pp. 86-7, 468-73, vol. 2, pp. 289-93 (English trans. in R. Löwenthal, ‘The early Jews in China. A supplementary bibliography’, Folklore Studies 5 [1946] 353-98) Matteo Ricci (Li Madou), ‘A final assessment of Islam’ (actual title unknown; in Matteo Ricci, Della entrata della Compagnia di Giesù e Christianità nella Cina, Macerata, 2000, p. 91; P. d’Elia, Fonti Ricciane. Storia dell’ introduzione del christianesimo in Cina, Rome, 1942, pp. 110-11; English translations in Spence, Memory palace, p. 118, and Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Like the Hebrews in Spain” ’, p. 519) Studies Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Like the Hebrews in Spain” ’ Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Western Gods meet in the East” ’ Spence, Memory palace Löwenthal, ‘Early Jews in China’ James Harry Morris

Jan Pieterszoon Coen Date of Birth 8 January 1587 Place of Birth Hoorn (Netherlands) Date of Death 21 September 1629 Place of Death Batavia (present-day Jakarta)

Biography

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was born in Hoorn, one of the seven towns with a representative in the VOC (Dutch East India Company). His father was a trader, and in 1601 he sent Jan to Rome to be educated in international commerce. The young Coen learned double-entry bookkeeping, a skill that would serve him well in future endeavours. In December 1607, Coen departed for the East Indies on a fleet of 13 ships as a junior official of the VOC. In April 1609, the fleet visited the harbour of the small archipelago of Banda, the sole provider of nutmeg at the time. As the Dutch wanted to build a fortress in Banda to guarantee their monopoly in nutmeg, the commander of the fleet, Pieter Verhoef, landed with a small party of three men for negotiations. These, however, turned violent and all of the Dutchmen were killed. The revenge of the Dutch fleet was swift, with the subsequent fighting resulting in the deaths of many local inhabitants and 40 Dutch soldiers, and much destruction of property. Eventually the Dutch managed to build a fortress. The process was complicated by the fact that the British were in the archipelago, also seeking privileges in trade. As in other parts of the Moluccas, the Muslim elite of Banda was divided between the Siwa and Lima clans, loyal to either Tidore or Ternate. This traumatic event may be seen as a key factor in Coen’s ordering total war against the Bandanese islands in 1621. Coen and the fleet returned to Holland in 1611. The following year, Coen sailed with two ships to the Indies, now as a senior trader. On arrival in Bantam, the major harbour of West Java, the fleet found that all the Dutch officials and staff had been killed and the pepper warehouses burnt down. In October 1613, Coen was nominated as general bookkeeper for Bantam and Jakatra (now Jakarta). Soon he became administrator and visionary planner for the whole of the East Asian VOC. In this role, he paid particular attention to Indonesian spices, and established an administrative centre for the spice trade in Jakatra. His influence spread, and in 1618 he was



jan pieterszoon coen

307

nominated governor-general for the whole region of the East Indies, leading him again to request a Dutch monopoly in the spice trade. The sultan of Bantam, however, deep in negotiations with the Portuguese and British, refused Coen’s request. The Dutch responded with violence, burning down the town and building a great fortress in Jakatra in its stead. Jakatra was renamed Batavia in 1621. Besides Bantam, the sultanate of Mataram controlled harbours on the central and eastern coast of Java. Later in 1621, Coen organised a three-month long attack on the Banda islands, where the population was selling nutmeg to the British as well as to the Dutch. The largest of the tiny islands, Lontor, was attacked. Over half of its approximately 5,000 inhabitants were killed, with the survivors deported to other islands, and hundreds taken as slaves to Batavia. The leadership of the island – 47 village chiefs and elders – were imprisoned and later executed by Japanese mercenaries of the VOC. Among his fellow VOC leaders, there was criticism of Coen’s violence, but he was allowed to pursue the colonial war. Between 1623 and 1627, Coen went to Holland on furlough. During his second tenure as governor-general (1627-9), the sultan of Mataram attacked Batavia twice and Coen died during the second siege, probably succumbing to a cholera outbreak. The Dutch fortress repelled the attacks. In subsequent years, due to the skill of Coen’s leadership and his legacy, the Dutch domination of trade in spices was continued and extended by his successors.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Isaac Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, Amsterdam, 1645-6 (repr. Amsterdam, 1969) H.T. Colenbrander and W.P. Coolhaas (eds), Jan Pietersz. Coen. Bescheiden omtrent zijn verblijf in Indië, 7 vols, The Hague, 1919-53 Secondary J. van Goor, Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629). Koopman-koning in Azië, Amsterdam, 2015 L. Johnson, ‘Renegotiating dissonant heritage. The statue of J.P. Coen’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 20 (2014) 583-98 J. Tulkens, Jan Pieterszoon Coen. De bedwinger van Indië, Kampen, 2007 P. Winn, ‘Slavery and cultural creativity in the Banda Islands’, Journal of Asian Studies 41 (2010) 365-89

308

jan pieterszoon coen

K.F. Kohlenberg, U. Kohlenberg and K. Wendlandt, Der Eiserne Mann. Jan Pieterszoon Coen gründet das Kolonialreich der Niederlande, Balve, 1977 (Dutch trans. Baarn, 1979) U. Tjandrasasmita (ed.), Sejarah Nasional Indonesia. Jilid III: Jaman Pertumbuhan dan Perkembangan Kerajaan-kerajaan Islam di Indonesia, Jakarta, 1976 R. Ali, Sang Gubernur-Jenderal, Jakarta, 1976 M.E. van Opstall, De reis van de vloot van Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff naar Azië, 16071612, The Hague, 1972, pp. 91-106 H.T. Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen. Levensbeschrijving, The Hague, 1934 J. Slauerhoff, Jan Pietersz. Coen. Drama in elf taferelen, Maastricht, 1931 P. Bak Tjoa, Sara Specx satoe kedjadian jang betoel di Betawi di djeman pamerentahannja Jan Pieterszoon Coen dalem taon 1629, Bandoeng, 1926

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Discoers aan de E. Heeren Bewinthebberen touscherende den Nederlantsch Indischen staet, ‘Memorandum to the noble governors about the condition of the Dutch Indies’ Date 1 January 1614 Original Language Dutch Description Jan Pieterszoon Coen wrote many letters and reports for the VOC central office in Amsterdam, and the substantial memorandum of 1 January 1614 was known as his vision statement for the VOC. It occupies 24 pages in his biography (Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen. Levensbeschrijving, pp. 451-74; all the references that follow are to this edition), and is divided into 14 sections. The first five discuss the VOC’s ultimate goals in the East Indies. The VOC had to navigate rivalry with the local Portuguese and Spanish governments in the context of Holland being at war with Spain. Section 6 describes the British as rivals in the trade in spices, where the ideal situation of a monopoly was difficult to realise. Section 7 gives Coen’s viewpoint on trade relations in East Indonesia with the small but important sultanate of Ternate, the then centre of the spice trade. ‘Are good and evil compatible? The hostility that nature produces in different animal species, also between oil and water, will apply to these matters as well, for only necessity has held our association together for so long. We are enemies by nature. The Ternatans are Mahometans and we are Christians. They are deceitful and duplicitous as well, not even



jan pieterszoon coen

309

bound (so they claim) to keep their oaths or promises to Christians. . . . Should we try to make Christians of the Ternatans or take what is ours by right from them, even with force, if need be? I say in reply that in the Moluccas at present religion should by all means be left alone. We must maintain our right to export cloves – by force even – but in respect to other matters we should turn a blind eye to a great deal’ (pp. 462-3). Section 8 uses the same style in considering the nutmeg monopoly of the Banda islands. Sections 9-11 address Coen’s desire to plant a European Christian colony in the area. This was necessary, because ‘the Moors abhor us and therefore the Ternatans and Bandanese do not permit anyone from their families to marry any of us for any reason whatsoever’. Coen candidly requested the VOC ‘to send here as many people as possible, both male and female’ (pp. 470, 473). In a later repetition of this request (1620), he adds that Europe could ‘relieve many orphanages in the United Netherlands by sending young girls in particular’ (p. 534). Section 12 proposes a central office for the Asian settlements of the VOC. Coen mentions Jakarta (besides Bantam) as a better place for colonisation than the faraway harbours of East Indonesia where the spices could be bought, such as Ambon or Solor. Section 13 contains a request to send more qualified personnel. Section 14 again discusses religious aspects of the undertaking. Coen hopes that good Protestant ministers will be sent to foster reformed religion in the VOC, so that the community could work for the honour of God. ‘There is nothing that can unite the hearts of people more than unity and the right exercise of religion, and nothing will create more separation between the hearts of people than difference of religion. And this is exactly the reason why people of Ternate, Banda, in short, all Mahometists are at so great distance from us. Here we must acknowledge that these southern peoples show much greater affection for their religion then our peoples from the northern regions’ (p. 474). Therefore, the VOC should not send ‘foolish, uncircumcised idiots, as most of the lower religious functionaries are, who bring our religion in discredit’ (p. 474). Even towards the end of his life, Coen does not express any hope for the conversion of Muslims. Instead, he prepares for a Dutch and Christian organisation of trade in spices, essentially a monopoly of power. This power could manipulate local rulers to help prevent European rivals from taking over. He speaks of Muslims as having a ‘great affection’ for their religion, demonstrated in capital punishment being meted out for accusations of adultery. Coen was concerned that ‘Christians set less

310

jan pieterszoon coen

value on the honour of our wives than the Turks, Moors and pagans’ (p. 886), and therefore pleaded for this to be addressed in the Dutch community, as it was among the Muslims. Significance Coen’s most recent biographer, Jur van Goor, has suggested that Discoers was named after the Discorsi by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). Van Goor specifically highlights the concept of dissimilare: a lack of faithfulness to one’s promises in politics, which might be justified for political reasons, such as danger or economic necessity. Coen observes this concept in the behaviour of the Muslims of Ternate and the king of Spain. To control this in his own behaviour, Coen sets rules for himself, which also highlight Dutch profit as his supreme goal. In contracts, the Dutch were often promised a monopoly, but in reality this was only achieved after much fighting. In his subtitle, van Goor labels Coen Koopmankoning (‘Merchant-king’). He includes a section that questions whether Coen was also a warlord (van Goor, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, pp. 222-9). He stresses that Coen himself was not involved in bloody battles, but remained a rather precise bookkeeper of all deaths, injuries and other results of the fighting that he unscrupulously ordered. In the 1930s, in a tradition initiated by Coen, scholars depicted the VOC empire as the first international business or trading company. Bernard Vlekke subsequently claimed that the VOC did not restrict itself to economic trade, but with the help of a large army began a true empire, whereby the core business of trade was only made possible through military and political power established in the time of Coen. Coen’s great respect for Islamic piety resulted in a society where Muslims were tolerated, and their religion allowed as long as trade could continue. Albert Schrauwers has compared the Netherlands and colonial Indonesia and observed that in the Netherlands in the period 1600-1800, the European Reformed Calvinist tradition was promoted by the Dutch government, although other denominations (Lutherans, Mennonites, Catholics, etc.) were tolerated with minor restrictions (e.g. church buildings should not be visible from the outside). Likewise, in Indonesia the Dutch created a similar ‘pillarisation’ or ‘apartheid of souls’ where the boundaries between various religious denominations were respected and even given legal recognition, with the Dutch respecting Muslim family law in matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. This resembles a dhimmī system in reverse, with privileges for Reformed Christians until 1800 (and for all Christians after 1800), and a recognised (though



jan pieterszoon coen

311

somewhat restricted) position for other faiths. The double conviction of Coen is prominent: his firm Reformed Calvinistic convictions, as well as his deep respect for East Indonesian Islamic piety. Coen did not agree with the spectacular anti-Islamic plans of his Portuguese counterpart Afonso d’Albuquerque (such as the proposed diversion of the Nile from northern Egypt, or the conquest of the city of Mecca). Coen designed a modus vivendi with the separate habitation of Muslim and Reformed Calvinist communities, ensuring harmony between the two faiths. Publications MS The Hague, National Archives – Colonial Archive, 4464 T 3* (1614) Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen. Levensbeschrijving, Appendix, pp. 451-74 Studies J. van Goor, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, Amsterdam, 2015 G. Knaap, The core business of the VOC. Market, power and inspiration from an overseas perspective, Inaugural lecture, Utrecht University, 2014 A. Pelúcia, ‘Afonso de Albuquerque’, in CMR 6, pp. 318-27 G.J. Schutte (ed.), Het Indisch Sion. De Gereformeerde kerk onder de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, Hilversum, 2002 A. Schrauwers, ‘Pillars of faith. Religious rationalization in the Netherlands and in Indonesia’, Informatieblad voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Zending en Overzeese Kerken 7 (2000) 1-23 K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 1993 L. Blussé van Oud-Alblas, Strange company. Chinese settlers, mestizo women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia, Leiden, 1986 W.A. Hanna, Indonesian Banda. Colonialism and its aftermath in the nutmeg islands, Philadelphia PA, 1978 H. Furber, Rival empires of trade in the Orient 1600-1800, Minneapolis MN, 1976 Uka Tjandrasasmita (ed.), Sejarah Nasional Indonesia. Jilid III: Jaman Pertumbuhan dan Perkembangan Kerajaan-kerajaan Islam di Indonesia, Jakarta, 1976 C.R. Boxer, The Dutch seaborne empire, 1600-1800, London, 1965 M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian trade and European influence in the Indonesian archipelago between 1500 and about 1630, The Hague, 1962

312

jan pieterszoon coen

J.C. van Leur, Eenige beschouwingen betreffende den ouden Aziatische handel, Middelburg, 1934 (English trans. Indonesian trade and society. Essays in Asian social and economic history, The Hague, 1955) B.H.M. Vlekke, Nusantara. A history of the East Indian Archipelago, Cambridge MA, 1943 (in reprints, East Indian Archipelago is changed to Indonesia) H.T. Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen. Bescheiden omtrent zijn verblijf in Indië, The Hague, vol. 1, 1919; vol. 3, 1921 Karel Steenbrink

Nicolas Trigault Trigautius, Trigaultius, Jin Nige Date of Birth 1577 Place of Birth Douai, Belgium Date of Death 1628 Place of Death Hangzhou

Biography

Nicolas Trigault joined the Society of Jesus in 1594. He studied mathematics, astronomy and geography in Europe, and left in 1607 for Macau, arriving there in 1610. He undertook Chinese language training in Nanjing and later moved to Beijing. He left China in 1612 as procurator of the Jesuit mission, reaching Rome in 1614, where he received approval for priests to offer the mass and breviary in Chinese. After travelling around Europe gaining support for the mission, he left again for China in 1619, and on arrival evangelised in Kaifeng. In 1624, he visited Shaanxi, and he died in Hangzhou in 1628.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary H. Didier, Fantômes d’islam et de Chine. Le voyage de Bento de Góis s.j. (1603-1607), Paris, 2003 J.W. Witek, art. ‘Nicolas Trigault, 1577-1628’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Grand Rapids MI, 1998 D.E. Mungello, Curious land. Jesuit accommodation and the origins of Sinology, Honolulu HI, 1989 G.H. Dunne, Generation of giants. The story of the Jesuits in China in the last decades of the Ming dynasty, Notre Dame IN, 1962 E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London, 1931 C. Dehaisnes, Vie du père Nicolas Trigault de la Compagnie de Jésus, Paris, 1864

314

nicolas trigault

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas svscepta, ab Societate Iesv, ‘The Christian expedition to China of the Society of Jesus’ Date 1615 Original Language Latin Description During his journey to Rome between 1612 and 1614, Trigault completed a Latin translation of an Italian manuscript originally written by Matteo Ricci, describing China and the Jesuit mission there. Trigault also edited Ricci’s text and composed an additional five chapters in order to bring the history up to date, to finish in approximately 1613. His text, which Ricci had composed as five books, was some 646 pages long. Of the reprints, some are shorter, others longer, covering up to 712 pages, while translations stretch to over 1,000 pages. The full title of the text is De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas svscepta, ab Societate Iesv ex P. Matthaei Riccj eiusdem societatis commentarijs. Libri V. Ad S. D. N. Pavlvm V. In quibus Sinensis regni mores, leges atqu: instituta & noua illius ecclesiae difficillima primordia accurate & summa fide describuntur. Auctore P. Nicolao Trigavtio Belga ex eadem societate. In the English translations, it is often difficult to ascertain which sections are original to Ricci and which are from Trigault’s hand. In any case, the influence of Ricci on the interpolated text is clear, as several of his concepts are repeated in it. The text similarly draws on the work of Diego de Pantoja, or at least reaches similar conclusions and posits similar theories. Muslims and Islam feature several times. Trigault (and Ricci) note the existence of the court-sanctioned ‘Saracen’ astronomers and the passing of astronomical information from ‘Saracens’ to the Chinese. They attribute the great number of Muslims in China to a law prohibiting Muslim migrants from leaving China if they have stayed for a period longer than nine years (Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus, p. 424; the references that follow are to this text unless otherwise stated). The author and translator argue that Muslims maintain their practices and temples, but do not teach about their religion and are unskilled in the knowledge of their own tenets (p. 465). Like de Pantoja, they attribute the origin of China’s Muslim population to the Mongol invasions, noting that, due to the time over which



nicolas trigault

315

the population had established itself, the religion was no longer treated with suspicion (p. 465). The authors note the ability of Muslims to study like the Chinese, and state that some Chinese believe that Muslims become natives after four generations (p. 465). Nevertheless, those Muslims who become educated often abandon their religious beliefs (p. 465). Trigault furthermore notes that Mughals informed Ricci of the existence of Christians in China (as had been the case with Jerome Xavier) (p. 465). As in Ricci’s own reports, Trigault records his predecessor’s conversation with the Jew Ai Tian, noting that Ricci learnt that many Christians became Jews, Saracens or idolaters due to the suspicion with which they were regarded (p. 466). He also repeats the ways in which Christians, Muslims and Jews are distinguished from one another, and the ways in which the Muslims refer to Christians, originally found in Ricci’s work (p. 466). In these passages, the focus is more on Judaism and Christianity than on Islam; thus, for example, Islam is referred to in reference to Jewish conversions to the religion. In the same text, Trigault describes the journey of Bento de Góis, based on Ricci’s records and other sources (Trigault, Cathay and the way thither, pp. 549-96; all the references that follow are to this translation). De Góis’s mission was sanctioned by officials in India on the basis of reports that informed them that Cathay contained a large number of Muslims and that it was not generally believed (except by Jesuits in China) that Cathay and China were the same place (pp. 550-1). Trigault argues that the Muslim informants who had relayed this information had either lied, as was their nature, or misled the missionaries present in India by mistaking Buddhist imagery and practice for Christianity (p. 551). De Góis was chosen for the mission because of his knowledge of Persian and Muslim customs, and he set out with a great number of traders from the Mughal Empire, as was customary for those traveling to Cathay (pp. 550, 553). While it is certain that the majority of characters who feature in the narrative are Muslims, knowledge of this is for the most part assumed by the author and so there are relatively few explicit statements about Islam or Muslims. At one point in the narrative, de Góis meets a ḥajj pilgrim (p. 556), whereupon he describes the ḥajj as performed for the sake of a blasphemous doctrine, a pilgrimage to the ‘imposter’s carcass’ at Mecca (p. 557). Trigault reports a number of incidences of ‘conflict’ between de Góis and Muslims, and much of the narrative is set to the backdrop of wider

316

nicolas trigault

conflicts between the Islamic kingdoms through which de Góis travelled and the rebels within them (pp. 559-61, 567, 570). One such incident was the spreading of false reports by Saracens that de Góis had been put to death by Muslim clerics for invoking the name of a false prophet (pp. 567-8). Another was a threat made to de Góis’s life over dinner by a Saracen who wanted him to invoke the Prophet’s name (p. 569). Elsewhere, de Góis was forced to bribe priests for exemption from fasting laws (p. 574). Trigault notes that such falsities were a regular occurrence. The author regularly portrays Christian-Muslim debate as resulting in Christian victory (pp. 569, 574-5). In one debate, between de Góis and some mullas, de Góis argued that the direction of prayer was unimportant because God is everywhere. On hearing this, the mullas concluded that Christianity had some good qualities (p. 569). During another debate with those learned in Islamic law, de Góis silenced and defeated his opponents through his fidelity to his faith (p. 578). This caused the ruler of the region to express his approval for Christianity, stating that the Christians were true believers (pp. 574-5). Concurrent with de Pantoja’s reports (which are more or less repeated with some additional details later in the narrative), de Góis met merchants pretending to be an embassy in order to enter China on their return journey (pp. 577, 582-3). These merchants gave de Góis information about Peking and the Jesuit brothers there (pp. 577-8). Through this, de Góis was able to affirm that Cathay and China were indeed the same place, and his last doubt evaporated when he reached the border and heard more stories (pp. 577-8). In describing Muslims who live on the Chinese border, Trigault notes that they lack a spirit of war and could be easily overcome by their Chinese neighbours, should the latter choose to act (p. 580). At the border, de Góis was delayed at a city divided into two parts, one for Chinese and one for Muslims who had come for trade (pp. 581-2). Many of the Muslims had taken wives and had children, and so would not return to their home countries (p. 582). Trigault notes that these Muslims lived under Chinese law, unlike the Portuguese in Macau (p. 582). Stuck at the border city, de Góis wrote to Ricci to ask for assistance in order that he might escape his company of Saracens (p. 584). Ricci dispatched a Chinese Jesuit named John Ferdinand (p. 585). Trigault notes that de Góis endured more annoyance from the Muslims at this border city than at any other point during his whole journey (pp. 585-6). He hid part of his supply of jade so that his Muslim compatriots would not steal or spend it (p. 586). Shortly after the arrival of



nicolas trigault

317

Ferdinand, de Góis died from an illness that some suspected to be caused by poisoning by Muslims (pp. 586-7). Before his death, he had written to Beijing to warn the Jesuits there not to place faith in Muslims (p. 588). Trigault records that, following de Góis’s death, the Muslims sought to take his possessions and destroyed his travel journal because it recorded their debts to him (p. 587). Furthermore, they demanded that he be buried according to Muslim customs, but John Ferdinand was able to prevent this (p. 587). They also captured de Góis’s Armenian travel companion Isaac and, in a dispute over de Góis’s possessions, demanded that he invoke Muḥammad (p. 588). In the court case that followed, the Muslims attempted to problematise the relationship between Ferdinand and Isaac, claiming that one was a Saracen and the other a Chinaman. But, since Ferdinand was able to assert that Isaac hated Islam, and because both men ate pork, the case was dropped (pp. 588-90). Significance Trigault takes three approaches to Islam. In dealing with the life and work of Ricci he more or less follows the assertions of Ricci and his predecessors, with some minor additions. These passages are for the most part descriptive and generally lack overt anti-Islamic sentiment, as was common to Ricci’s later work. On the other hand, Trigault’s account of the journey of de Góis takes an often explicitly anti-Islamic and polemical approach. This might suggest that his source material for de Góis was more strongly anti-Islamic than the other source material, or it may have resulted from the fact that Muslims in de Góis’s story interacted with the protagonist directly, which necessitated the use of value judgments. A third approach is taken with regard to Muslim leaders who are praised for their material and moral support of the Jesuits. The Mughal leadership (pp. 550, 552, 557), the king of Yarkand (pp. 565-6), the nephew of the king of Cascar (pp. 572-3), and the illegitimate son of the king of Cascar (pp. 574-5) are all viewed in a positive light because of their patronage of de Góis’s mission. Trigault generally favours the term Saraceni, which is common to the period, though he also uses Mahometanae. The large number of translations and reprints suggest that the work had on-going importance for the composition of later works and the forming of European understandings of China and its Muslims.

318

nicolas trigault

Publications Nicolas Trigault, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas svscepta, ab Societate Iesv ex P. Matthaei Riccj eiusdem societatis commentarijs. Libri V. Ad S. D. N. Pavlvm V. In quibus Sinensis regni mores, leges atqu: instituta & noua illius ecclesiae difficillima primordia accurate & summa fide describuntur. Auctore P. Nicolao Trigavtio Belga ex eadem societate, Augustae Vind.: apud Christoph. Mangium, 1615 (repr. Lugduni, 1616; Coloniae, 1617; Ulyssipone, 1623; Coloniae, 1684); 1615: 999/4Hist.pol.1218; 1616: 4 Jes. 284; 1617: Jes. 1006; 1684: Jes. 1006 h (digitalised versions available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Nicolas Trigault, Histoire de l’expedition chrestienne au royaume de la Chine entreprinse par les PP. de la compagnie de Iesus. Comprinse en cinq liures. Esquels est traicté fort exactement et fidelement des moeurs, loix et coustumes du pays, et des commenccemens tres difficiles de l’ église naissante, trans. D.F. de Riquebourg-Trigault, Lyon: Pour Horace Cardon, 1616 (repr. Lille, 1617; Paris, 1618) (French trans.); bpt6k8704822w (digitalised version available through BNF) Nicolas Trigault, Historia von Einführung der Christlichen Religion in das grosse Königreich China durch die Societet Jesu. Sambt wohlbegründten bericht von beschaffenhaitt dess Landts und Volcks auch desselbigen gesatzen, Sitten und gewohnheiten. Aus dem Lateinischen R.P. Nicolai Trigautii, gemelter Societeyt Jefu, trans. P. Welser, Augsburg: In Verlag Antonii Hierat von Cöllen, 1617 (German trans.); 4 Jes. 285 c (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) Nicolas Trigault, Istoria de la China i cristiana empresa hecha en ella por la compania de Iesus. Que, de los escritos del padre Mateo Richo, compuso el padre Nicolas Trigault Flamenco, ambos de la misma compania. Donde se descriven las costumbres, las leies, i los estatutos de aquel reino, i los dificultosissimos principios de su nueva iglesia. Traduzida de lengua latina por el licenciado Duarte, abogado de las reales audiencias de la ciudad de Sevilla, i Lima. Con privilegio real, trans. F. Duarte, Seville: Por Gabriel Ramos Veiarano, 1621 (Spanish trans.); U/6157 (digitalised version available through Universidad Complutense Madrid)



nicolas trigault

319

Nicolas Trigault, Entrata nella China de’ padri della compagnia del Gesù. Tradotta da i comentarij del P. Matteo Ricci di detta compagnia. Doue si contengono i costumi, le leggi, & ordini di quel regno, e i principij difficilissimi della nascente chiesa, descritti con ogni accuratezza, e con molta fede. Opera del P. Nicolao Trigauci padre di detta compagnia & in molti luoghi da lui accresciuta, e revista. Volgarizata dal signor Antonio Sozzini da Sarzana, trans. A. Sozzini, Napoli: Per Lazzaro Scorriggio, 1622 (Italian trans.); 5894481918 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digitale del Museo Galileo) Nicolas Trigault, ‘A discourse of the kingdome of China, taken out of Riccius and Trigautius, contayning the country, people, government, religion, rites, sects, characters, studies, arts, acts: And a map of China added, drawne out of one there made with annotations for the understanding thereof’, in S. Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, London: William Stansby, 1625, vol. 3, pp. 380-411 (English trans.; repr. Glasgow, 1906, vol.12, pp. 411-78); STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Nicolas Trigault, Cathay and the way thither, trans. H. Yule, London, 1866, vol. 2, pp. 549-96 (English trans.) Nicolas Trigault, The China that was. China as discovered by the Jesuits at the close of the sixteenth century, trans. L.J. Gallagher, Milwaukee WI, 1942 (English trans.) L.J. Gallagher (trans.), China in the sixteenth century. The journals of Matthew Ricci. 1583-1610, New York, 1953 (English trans. of Ricci’s journals) Nicolas Trigault, Histoire de l’expédition chrétienne au royaume de la Chine 1582-1610, trans. G. Bessière, Paris, 1978 (French trans.) Nicolas Trigault, Entrata nella China de’ padri della Compagnia del Gesù, 1582-1610, trans. Shi Xingsan, C. Laurenti and A. Sozzini, Rome, 1983 (Italian trans.) Noted digitalised versions are listed in Bibliotheca Sinica; http://www. univie.ac.at/Geschichte/China-Bibliographie/blog/2010/06/13/trigaultricci/. Studies C. Jami, P. Engelfriet and G. Blue (eds), Statecraft and intellectual renewal in late Ming China. The cross-cultural synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), Leiden, 2001 Mungello, Curious land

320

nicolas trigault

T.N. Foss, ‘Nicholas Trigault, SJ–amanuensis or propagandist? The rôle of the editor of Della entrata della Compagnia di Giesù e Christianità nella Cina’, in International Symposium on Chinese-Western Cultural Interchange in Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the Arrival of Matteo Ricci, SJ in China, Taipei, 1983, 1-94 R. Löwenthal, ‘The early Jews in China. A supplementary bibliography’, Folklore Studies 5 (1946) 353-98 E. Lamalle, ‘La propaganda du P. Nicolas Trigault en faveur des missions de Chine (1616)’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 9 (1940) 49-120 James Harry Morris

Frederick de Houtman Date of Birth 1570 or 1571 Place of Birth Gouda, the Netherlands Date of Death 21 October 1627 Place of Death Alkmaar, the Netherlands

Biography

Frederick de Houtman is best known for the second of his four trips to Indonesia. He was born in the Dutch town of Gouda shortly before the ‘alteration’ of 1572, when the town officially accepted the Calvinist ‘Reformed’ faith in place of Roman Catholicism. He attended grammar school, where he studied Latin and modern sciences, including arithmetic. He grew up a Reformed Protestant and in 1590 moved to Alkmaar, where in 1592 he married Vroutgen Frederick, the daughter of a wealthy businessman still loyal to the Catholic faith. In December 1592, he followed his brother Cornelis to Lisbon in order to act as a commercial ‘spy’ with respect to trade with the Far East. In early 1594, the brothers returned to the Netherlands and joined the first Dutch ships that sailed to the East Indies, four of which departed in April 1595 and returned in August 1597. Cornelis de Houtman was the general director of the enterprise, which made a profit from pepper bought in Banten. Frederick would undertake three further journeys to the East Indies. His second trip, also undertaken with his brother, began in March 1598. The four ships arrived in Aceh on 24 June 1599, and a turbulent period of negotiations ensued. The Acehnese wanted to sell pepper, but they were not interested in the diamonds and gold or silver coins offered by the Dutch as payment. Instead, they wanted military support in the form of superior ships for an attack on the rival Sultanate of Johore. The Dutch were about to comply with the request when, on 11 September, just one day before the planned departure for Johore, their ships were pre-emptively attacked by the Acehnese and Cornelis and 28 crew members were killed. The harbour master (syahbandar) and many of his men also died. The Dutch ships fled, but Frederick was marooned on land and was taken prisoner; he spent nearly two years in captivity with more than 20 of his men. During this period, the prisoners (predominantly Dutch, but also

322

frederick de houtman

one Briton, John Davis, who was also considered a spy) were pressurised to embrace Islam. A number of them did so, but without any appreciable improvement to their situation compared with those who resisted conversion. Frederick was offered a wife and better living conditions if he converted. He was also subjected to considerable threats if he refused, such as having his hands amputated and being shot from a cannon, as was the fate of other prisoners. He persisted and nevertheless survived. He even engaged in sophisticated debates with Muslim experts about the two religions. He eventually sensed that, as the sultan was interested in peaceful trade with the Dutch, he might be set free and, in November 1600, ten of his fellow prisoners gained their freedom and left on a visiting Dutch trading ship. He himself had to wait until 23 August 1601 before he was allowed to board another Dutch ship, and he arrived back in his homeland on 6 July 1602. De Houtman’s third trip to the Indies was less dramatic. In December 1603, he left Amsterdam as a senior trader in the service of the VOC. The fleet of 12 ships under Admiral Steven van der Hagen sailed directly to the Portuguese-held island of Ambon and arrived on 23 February 1605. The Portuguese surrendered and it was agreed that the Portuguese soldiers should leave, while the Jesuit priests could stay and serve the remaining Catholic community. However, the Dutch soldiers and ordinary seamen, who were of the Reformed Protestant faith, disrupted Catholic Church services and destroyed statues of saints. On 9 May 1605, the Jesuits and all other remaining Portuguese were ordered to leave the island. Frederick became governor of Ambon, a position he held until 11 February 1611, during which time he oversaw the transition of the society from Catholic to Reformed Protestant, with Muslims comprising a good half of the subjects. He translated a short Dutch catechism and some sermons into Malay. Catholicism was absolutely banned, but with regard to Muslims a strict respect for the status quo was guaranteed. This is apparent in the treaties made with local chiefs. After returning to his homeland, de Houtman held various public positions in the town of Alkmaar between 1611 and 1618. Then, on 28 December 1618, he left for his last trip to the East Indies. He was the supreme commander of a fleet of six ships that took a southern route eastwards from the Cape of Good Hope, thus discovering the western coast of Australia. He then held a position on the supreme council of the Dutch colony, and a short time later he was nominated governor of the Moluccas, with a residency in Ternate. In 1624, he returned again to the Netherlands, where he died three years later.



frederick de houtman

323

E.M. Beekman considers the brothers Cornelis and Frederick de Houtman as examples of two extreme colonial stereotypes (Troubled pleasures, ch. 4). Cornelis was a brutal man who had no diplomatic sense or empathy for other cultures and religions. By comparison, Frederick is depicted as patient, flexible, capable of adapting to cultural differences, and eager to learn languages. Another observer, the Dutch historian H.J. de Graaf sees in Frederick as a ‘noble but not a determined man’ (De geschiedenis van Ambon, p. 47), and François Valentijn wrote that he was not, in fact, a strong supporter of Protestantism as such, and had initially ‘just left things drift as to religion’ (Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, vol. 2/2, p. 30).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. Davis, The voyage of Captaine John Davis to the Easterne India, Pilot in a Dutch ship, written by himselfe, London, 1625 (repr. in Hakluyt Society Publications 49, London, 1880; also W.S. Unger, De oudste reizen van de Zeeuwen naar Oost-Indië 1598-1604, The Hague, 1948, pp. 39-63) François Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, Dordrecht, 1724-6, esp. vol. 2/2, ‘Ambonsche Zaaken’ Secondary T. Suarez, Early mapping of the Pacific. The epic story of seafarers, Singapore, 2004 N. van der Sijs, Wie komt daar aan op die olifant? Een zestiende eeuws taalgidsje voor Nederland en Indië, inclusief het verhaal van de avontuurlijke gevangenschap van Frederik de Houtman in Indië, Amsterdam, 2000 E.M. Beekman, Troubled pleasures. Dutch colonial literature from the East Indies, 1600-1950, Oxford, 1996 J. Belonje, ‘Frederik de Houtman de zeevaarder’, Alkmaarse Volksalmanak 3 (1979) 29-52 H.J. de Graaf, De geschiedenis van Ambon en de Zuid-Molukken, Franeker, 1977 W.S. Unger, De oudste reizen van de Zeeuwen naar Oost-Indië 1598-1604, The Hague, 1948 J.C. Mollema, De eerste schipvaart der Hollanders naar Oost-Indië 1595-1597, The Hague, 1936 C. Swarts, ‘Eenige bijzonderheden over Frederick de Houtman’, Kroniek van het historisch genootschap gevestigd te Utrecht 8 (1852) 361-71 J.T. Bodel Nyenhuis, ‘Het leven en de letterkundige verdiensten van Frederick de Houtman’, in J. van Lennep (ed.), Nieuwe Werken van de Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde te Leiden, Dordrecht, 1831, vol. 3, 303-46

324

frederick de houtman

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Cort verhael vant gene wedervaren is Frederick de Houtman tot Atchein int eylandt Sumatra in den tijdt van ses ende twintich maenden die hy aldaer gevanghen is gheweest, ‘Brief account of the experiences of Frederick de Houtman in Aceh during the 26 months of his captivity’ Date 1601 Original Language Dutch Description Two pages into Cort verhael, his 49-page account of his second voyage to the Indonesian archipelago, Frederick de Houtman engages in a threepage description of the Maldives, expressing much admiration for the many beautiful mosques on these tiny islands. He then recounts his arrival in Aceh on 24 June 1599, paying much attention to the ceremonies of the court, such as, for example, the solemn procession of the sultan, seated on an elaborately-dressed elephant, to the mosque on the first day of Muḥarram. Receptions at the sultan’s palace are described in detail. The sultan is not very interested in trade, but wants to enlist the great Dutch ships and their superior weapons for his plans to attack Johore. A succession of events, complicated by intrigues between the Portuguese traders and the syahbandar (harbour master), gives rise to misunderstandings and conflict, in which a number of the Dutch crew are killed, while the rest fight back and manage to escape. However, others who are on land are taken prisoner. The sultan suggests on several occasions that de Houtman should convert to Islam, and promises him a high position in the royal court. When the sultan presents him with a woman he could take as wife, de Houtman replies: ‘His Majesty must excuse me from this, since I already have a wife in our country and could not marry another woman.’ His account continues: ‘At this the king, although not very satisfied, no longer bothered me about the woman but continued to pressure me at various times into becoming a Moor. But God, who is a comforter of all distressed and afflicted hearts and a protector of all Christians who trust in him, did not allow this to occur’ (Cort verhael, pp. 18-19).



frederick de houtman

325

These first attempts were followed by many more, sometimes with threats of punishment, but there were also debates with religious experts. In one of these debates, de Houtman was told that ‘Mahomet resoulalla would mean that Muḥammad is God’s beloved one’. Thereupon, he stated that Christ has a higher position, even in Islam, ‘because he is identified as the Spirit of God’. There is also a long debate about the veneration of images and images of Mary in particular. De Houtman was quick to disassociate himself from the Catholic Portuguese and also corrected the idea that Mary was the wife of God, as is suggested in the Qur’an. Circumcision was another major point of theological debate with the Muslim scholars of Aceh. De Houtman’s situation improved suddenly and dramatically in August 1601, when he was set free and permitted to buy enough pepper to fill two Dutch ships, which then took him back to the Netherlands. Moreover, the sultan sent an official ambassadorial delegation to the Netherlands to open diplomatic relations. Among the delegation was one of the five Dutchmen who had embraced Islam. Dutch sources mention him as ‘Lenard the Renegade’, but for his services he was also paid by the Dutch company in Middelburg. The Acehnese Muslim diplomat who was leader of the mission died in Middelburg, where he was buried with the usual pomp in the great Protestant church, a former abbey (Wap, Het gezantschap). Significance A modern reader may wonder whether a report of debates, including the threat of torture, can give entirely reliable information. In the account of the voyage of Jacob Cornelius van Neck to Indonesia in the closing years of the 16th century, some of the information about Muslims is taken not from direct observation but from printed works, in particular the translation of the Qur’an published by Bibliander in 1543, with some additional apologetic material. By contrast, de Houtman’s account is so lively that it gives the impression of a genuine record of contact with people of the Muslim Sultanate of Aceh. The Cort verhael was dedicated to Prince Maurits of the Netherlands, but was not published until 1880, when the city of Gouda erected two statues of the brothers Cornelis and Frederick de Houtman. At that time, it formed part of an expression of nationalist sentiment to glorify the first voyage to the East Indies. The manuscript was acquired by the municipal library of the city of Gouda.

326

frederick de houtman

Publications MS Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland – Varia (ac 0200), inv.nr. 2004 (1601) Frederick de Houtman, Cort verhael vant gene wedervaren is Frederick de Houtman tot Atchein int eylandt Sumatra in den tijdt van ses ende twintich maenden die hy aldaer gevanghen is gheweest, Gouda, 1880 Unger, De oudste reizen van de Zeeuwen naar Oost-Indië, pp. 64-111 D. Lombard, Le Sultanat d’Atjéh au temps d’Iskandar Muda, 1607-1636, Paris, 1967, pp. 235-9 (French trans. of the debates about conversion to Islam) N. van der Sijs, Wie komt daar aan op die olifant?, pp. 122-83 (edition in modern Dutch) Studies M. Laffan, Islamic nationhood and colonial Indonesia, the Umma below the winds, London, 2003 K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 1993, esp. pp. 11-16 J.J.F. Wap, Het gezantschap van den sultan van Achin, 1602, aan Prins Maurits van Nassau en de Oud-Nederlandsche Republiek, Rotterdam, 1862

Spraeck ende woord-boek inde Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche talen met vele Arabische ende Turcsche woorden, ‘Grammar and dictionary of the Malay and Malagasy languages with many Arab and Turkish words’ Date 1603 Original Language Dutch Description During his nearly two-year imprisonment in Aceh (1599-1601), de Houtman acquired a good command of Malay. On the basis of this, he wrote Spraeck ende woord-boek inde Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche, a practical guide to the language, comprising 243 pages in the 1603 edition. The work follows the format of 12 conversations followed by a Malay-Dutch vocabulary, a model used in Europe, and by Noël van Berlaimont (d. 1531)



frederick de houtman

327

in particular, for the study of foreign languages. In fact, four of the 12 conversations closely follow Berlaimont’s text. The other conversations concern the discovery of new lands, trading and bargaining, buying food, and a reception at the palace of the king. These give an insight into the first contacts between Dutch traders and the Muslim society of Aceh. For greetings and ceremonial occasions, common expressions such as in shāʾ Allāh, al-salāmu ʿalaykum, al-ḥamdu li-llāh are frequently used. Where the Dutch text gives the word ‘church’, the Malay text gives ‘moskit’ (after the Portuguese word for mosque, ‘mesquite’). The writing follows the style of a polite guest who is respectfully adapting to a new society. The second half of the book comprises a Malay-Dutch vocabulary. To refer to a person considered a renegade, or in the process of renouncing his faith (verloochenen ‘t gheloof ), a central theme during de Houtman’s imprisonment, he uses the expression balick naby or ‘change one’s prophet’, as though converting from Christianity to Islam would in principle be a matter of turning from Christ to Muḥammad. The book not only consists of Dutch and Malay, but also offers three Dutch-Malagasy conversations and a similar list of words, as well as a list of Dutch words with their Arabic and Turkish translations (pp. 185-222). It is not clear who or what is the source of these lists. A 12-page appendix to the book contains descriptions of the stars of the southern hemisphere. According to the title page of this section, they were based on de Houtman’s observations, made using proper instruments during his time in Sumatra. Significance For Dutch-speaking people, this work was a first introduction to the Malay language (in a region where Portuguese was the major language of trade). In addition, the book provides a first direct impression of a foreign society, presented as relatively similar or at least comparable to a European one. Aspects of daily life, such as eating, visiting friends, going to the church/mosque or market, attending school, and institutions such as the local administration, are all presented as regular and common aspects and activities of any society. The list of vocabulary was reprinted in 1612 by A.C. Ruyll, but Ruyll’s dialogues are very pious in content, intended to prepare ministers and missionaries for the East Indies.

328

frederick de houtman

Publications Frederick de Houtman, Spraeck ende woordboeck, in de Maleysche en Madagaskarsche talen, met vele Arabische en Turcsche woorden, Amsterdam, 1603; Koninklijke Bibliotheek 652 G 51 (digitalised version available through EEB) A.C. Ruyll, Spieghel vande Maleysche tale inde welcke sich die indiaensche jeucht christelijck ende vermaeckelick kunnen oeffenen: vol eerlicke tsamenspraecken ende onderwijsinghen in de ware Godtsaligheyt tot voorstandt van de Christelijcke religie: met een vocabularium van de duytsche ende maleysche tale, Amsterdam, 1612 Gotthard Arthus, Colloquia Latino-Malaica, seu vulgares quaedam loquendi formulae, Latina, Malaica et Madagascariae linguis, Frankfurt, 1613 (Latin trans.) Gotthard Arthus, Dialogues in the English and Malaiane languages; or, Certaine common formes of speech, First written in Latin, Malaian, and Madagascar tongues, by the diligence and painfull endevour of Master Gotardus a Dantisker, trans. Augustine Spalding, London, 1614 (English adaptation of the Latin trans.); STC 810 (digitalised version available through EEBO) D. Lombard, Le ‘Spraeck ende woord-boek’ de Frederick de Houtman. Première méthode de malai parlé ( fin du XVIe s.), Paris, 1970 (French trans.) Van der Sijs, Wie komt daar aan op die olifant?, pp. 184-214 (a modern version of de Houtman’s original Dutch dialogues) Studies J. van der Putten, ‘Hoe den Maleier den nek om te draaien. Drie eeuwen Maleise taalgidsen (1600-1900)’, Meesterwerk 15 (1999) 6-15 K.J. Riemens, ‘Het spraeck ende woord-boeck van Fr. de Houtman en de vocabulare van Noël de Barlaimont’, Het Boek, Tijdschrift voor het Bibliotheekwezen 7 (1919) 193-6

Verbondt ende vast accoordt (and similar titles), VOC treaties with Muslim rulers of Indonesia Date 1605-20 Original Language Dutch



frederick de houtman

329

Description Frederick de Houtman attracted most attention for his second trip to Indonesia, while his two periods as colonial administrator, in Ambon and the Moluccas, are only documented in his own official reports. These are stored in the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague and published partly in the collected works of Jan Pietersz. Coen (Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, ed. H.T. Colenbrander, The Hague, 1919-34, 6 vols). One report of 1607 gives a sober but relatively complete account of his personal observations of the division of Christians and Muslims in Ambon, which was based on the social division that predated the introduction of both Islam and Christianity to the area. According to this, the area was divided into two clans, the Uli Lima (which by then contained only Muslims) and the Uli Siwa (with a mixed population of pagans, Christian and a few Muslims). The Uli Lima Muslims were, however, ruled by Ternate in Ambon’s north-eastern sections of Hitu, and were considered ‘vassals’ under Dutch rule. In Ambon, as in many other islands, the northern section was Muslim and the southern pagan or Christian, although the latter ‘still eat human flesh if they have fought their enemies’ (de Houtman, Beschrijving, pp. 58-9). The treaties signed by de Houtman with local rulers and chiefs began a long series of treaties with non-Christian rulers in the archipelago. Many of these contain a religious paragraph. They all begin by stating the status quo, namely that the Dutch East India Company would accept the division between the religions and would not try to spread Christianity. One of the first treaties, signed on 17 June 1602 by the Dutch representative Wolphert Hermanzoon with the rulers of the island of Banda, included a theological element in its introduction, opening with the general statement that both parties should not try to change religions, because ‘God alone judges the soul of men’: Ten eersten sal yeder syn Godt dienen na tgelove hen Godt gegeven heeft, sonder den eenen den anderen te haten, ofte eenighe oorsaecke te gheven, daer quaestie uyt soude mogen rijsen, dan sullen malcanderen in alle fruntschap aen wedersyden bejegenen ende de rest Godt bevelen, die vant geloven ende gemoet rechter is ende syn sal (‘First: Every man and woman will serve God after the belief given by God to them, without hating one another or giving any cause that may lead to difficulties. They will approach each other in friendship and leave all other things to God who is and will remain the Judge of our faith and feelings’).

330

frederick de houtman

This treaty also contained a more pragmatic fourth paragraph, which stated that Dutch personnel who had left to join the Indonesian party should not be compelled to become Muslim (sonder te vermogen hem Moors te maecken), but rather always remain under the authority of the Dutch prince. They were allowed to convert if they did so without any compulsion or political implication. Conversely, people of Banda could convert to Christianity provided they did so completely of their own free will (Heeres and Stapel, Corpus Diplomaticum, vol. 1, p. 23). In February 1605, Steven van der Hagen, the conqueror of Ambon, signed a treaty there that was later renewed in August 1609 by de Houtman. This treaty also contained a paragraph stating that everybody should keep to their own faith ‘since God steers one’s heart’ (Heeres and Stapel, Corpus Diplomaticum, vol. 1, pp. 65-6). Another treaty, signed by de Houtman on 13 March 1609 with Muslims from four villages, bluntly states about the Muslim parts of Ambon that their inhabitants ‘will remain in their religion without any problems caused by the Christians of the castle . . .’. Moreover, it stipulates that neither religion would ‘read from their Scripture’ to the other, nor try to attract converts. A similar treaty was concluded with the inhabitants of the village of Rumakai, Southwest Ceram, confirming that neither party would undertake any missionary activities. The treaty of Ambon, 26 August 1609, states clearly and frankly that Christians should remain Christian, and Muslims (referred to in the text as ‘Muhammadans’) should remain Muslim, with neither side disturbing the other. A decade later, a treaty of 1 July 1620 addresses a highly sensitive subject, agreeing that the Muslims of Hitu should not try to find wives from among the Christian Ambonese, and neither should the Christians ‘from the castle’ seek spouses from among the Muslims of Hitu. Significance These four treaties signed by de Houtman are merely a handful of the 1198 treaties that were collected from the colonial archives by Heeres and Stapel, covering a period of 200 years. They all reflect a spirit of the controlled continuance, but also separation, of religions. De Houtman was one of the major architects of this strategy in the early 17th century. This should not be interpreted as a sign of inter-religious harmony or respect, but rather as a highly pragmatic policy by the Dutch minority party vis-à-vis their trading practices. The following centuries have witnessed many conflicts and wars between the Dutch and the Indonesians, with religion often playing a role in the complex situation of the archipelago.



frederick de houtman

331

Publications MS The Hague, Nationaal Archief – 1.04.02, inv 1702, fols 280-295 (1613; Dutch and Malay; a copy of three contracts with Banda, Ternate and Ambon signed by Frederick de Houtman) MS The Hague, Nationaal Archief – 1.04.02, inv 1053 and 1074 (1605-20; 40 letters by Frederick de Houtman) Frederick de Houtman, Beschrijving van het eiland Amboyna, in I. Commelin, Begin ende voortgang van de Vereenigde Neederlandtsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, Amsterdam, 1645, vol. 2, pp. 58-9 J.E. Heeres and F.W. Stapel (eds), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando Indicum, The Hague, 1907, vol. 1, pp. 35-6, 58-60, 65-6, 70-2 Studies Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism, pp. 11-16 G. Knaap, Kruidnagelen en Christenen. De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie en de bevolking van Ambon 1656-1696, Dordrecht, 1987, 20042 C. van Fraassen, ‘Ternate, de Molukken en de Indonesische Archipel’, Leiden, 1987 (Diss. Leiden University) D. Bartels, ‘Guarding the invisible mountain. Intervillage alliances, religious syncretism and ethnic identity among Ambonese Christians and Moslems in the Moluccas’, Ithaca NY, 1987 (PhD Diss. Cornell University) F. Cooley, ‘Altar and throne in Central Moluccan societies’, New Haven CT, 1962 (PhD Diss. Yale University) P.A. Tiele, ‘Beschrijvinge vant eijlant, stadt ende casteel van Ambona, mitsgaders die eijlanden onder den archipelago van Ambona sorteren’, Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 6 (1883) 338-76

Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, esp. vol. 2/2

Karel Steenbrink

The Jesuits in 17th-century Japan Literature on Muslims and Islam The Society of Jesus was formed in Paris on 15 August 1534 within the tumultuous political and religious context of the early 16th century, which was marked not only by the Protestant Reformation, but also by Catholic religious dissent, the Sack of Rome (1527), the emergence of the Iberian nations as world powers, the discovery of and expansion into the New World, and the Turkish incursions into Europe. It was not until 1540, however, that the Society was officially recognised by the Catholic Church, in Pope Paul II’s papal bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae. The Jesuit mission to Asia was intimately linked to the spread of the Portuguese who, through the 1493 Bulls of Donation, or Alexandrine Bulls (Eximiae devotionis, Inter caetera and Dudum siquidem) promulgated by Pope Alexander VI, and the Treaty of Tordesillas agreed between the Portuguese and Spanish crowns the following year, had gained exclusive rights to the East Indies and to the civil and religious administration of the lands they had discovered or were to discover there. The Portuguese reached India in 1498, establishing the Estado da Índia in 1505 and the See of Goa in 1534. From their Indian base they spread to Malacca, Indochina, Indonesia and the Maluku Islands, with the Jesuits joining them in 1542. The Portuguese had come into contact with Japanese traders in Malacca after it was conquered in 1511, but it was not until their ‘discovery’ of Japan in the early 1540s that sustained interest in the country emerged. Thenceforth, the Portuguese maintained commercial relations until the issuing of the bans on foreign trade that ended relations with the Iberian powers during the 1630s, and ecclesiastical relations developed from the inception of a mission by Francis Xavier in 1549 until the early 1640s in spite of successive bans on the religion and/or missionary activities from 1587. Despite the aforementioned Bulls of Donation and the provision of exclusive rights to the missions in both China and Japan by Pope Gregory XIII in the 1585 Bull Ex pastorali officio, the joining of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in 1580 complicated the situation. Franciscans visited Japan from 1590 as ambassadors of the Philippines, and established a permanent presence



the jesuits in 17th-century japan

333

alongside other orders from 1600, when the Jesuits’ exclusive rights were abolished. Missionaries to Japan interacted with Muslims en route to East Asia: they met Muslims at sea and in port; they kept Muslim slaves and employees; they facilitated Muslim-Christian trade; they were variously attacked and transported by Muslim pirates; they were participants and bystanders in wars against and between Muslim kingdoms; and most importantly they attempted to convert Muslims to Christianity. In Japan proper, because the country lacked a native Muslim presence, the missionaries had no direct contact with Muslims outside rare interactions with traders and more common interactions with their own slaves and staff, encounters that often go unmentioned in missionary reports, l­etters and other writings. Nevertheless, the Japanese mission facilitated interaction between Muslims and the Japanese. For instance, Petro Kasui Kibe (15871639), a future Catholic priest and martyr, became the first Japanese to visit the Holy Land, travelling overland to Europe between 1618 and 1620. A Japanese novice by the name of Nicolau de Santo Agostinho travelled with the Augustinian priest Nicolau de Melo and the Franciscan Afonso Cordeiro to Persia and Moscow between 1597 and 1599. It has also been suggested that the Portuguese trade in Japanese slaves facilitated the first Japanese conversions to Islam in India. In China, India and throughout South-East Asia, the missionaries came into contact with native Muslim populations. The authors considered in this entry are the Portuguese explorer Fernão Mendes Pinto (1509-83), who was associated with the Jesuit missionaries, and the French Jesuit François Solier (1558-1638), who became the principal of the Jesuit College at Limoges in 1598.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary D.A. Madigan, ‘Global visions in contestation. Jesuits and Muslims in the age of empires’, in T. Banchoff and J. Casanova (eds), The Jesuits and globalization. Historical legacies and contemporary challenges, Washington DC, 2016, 69-91 J.W. O’Malley, Saints or devils incarnate? Studies in Jesuit history, Leiden, 2013 Hosaka Shuji, ‘Japan and the Gulf. A historical perspective of pre-oil relations’, Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies 4 (2011) 3-24 T. Worcester (ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Jesuits, Cambridge, 2008 J. Wright, The Jesuits. Missions, myths and histories, London, 2004

334

the jesuits in 17th-century japan

D. Alden, The making of an enterprise. The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its empire, and beyond, 1540-1750, Stanford CA, 1996 J.W. O’Malley, The first Jesuits, Cambridge MA, 1993 H. Cieslik (Fūberuto Chiisuriku), Sekai wo aruita Kirishitan, Tokyo, 1971 M. Foss, The founding of the Jesuits 1540, London, 1969 C. Hollis, A history of the Jesuits, London, 1968 C.R. Boxer, Four centuries of Portuguese expansion, 1415-1825. A succinct survey, Johannesburg, 1961 H. Cieslik, ‘P. Pedro Kasui (1587-1639). Der letzte japanische Jesuit der TokugawaZeit’, Monumenta Nipponica 15 (1959) 35-86 C.R. Boxer, The Christian century in Japan, 1549-1650, Manchester, 1951 B. Ibáñez, ‘Carta al P. Sebastián Rodriguez’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana missionum V: Las misiones Franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 28-30 E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London, 1931

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations The Jesuits in 17th-century Japan. Literature on Muslims and Islam Date 1614-29 Original Language French and Portuguese Description Fernão Mendes Pinto (1509-83) was a Portuguese explorer associated with the Jesuit missionaries. His Peregrinaçam was edited and published posthumously in 1614, after which it was translated into a number of European languages. A series of Pinto’s claims have proved controversial, and some are believed to be semi-fictional. They place Pinto at the centre of historical events that he did not actually witness in person, such as the discovery of Japan. Pinto refers to Muslims on a number of occasions on his journey to and from Japan rather than in Japan itself (Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, vol. 12, pp. 59-141; this is the source cited in the references that follow). For the most part, Muslims are mentioned as unimportant bystanders to the main story, though Islam is also regularly perceived as a cause of apostasy and anti-Christian sentiment (pp. 60, 67-8). Where Islam and Muslims become central to the narrative, the focus is often on conflict with Muslims, who are portrayed as perpetrators of



the jesuits in 17th-century japan

335

thievery, imposters, infidels or tyrants (pp. 67-8, 73-4, 79). These antiIslamic and polemical passages are interspersed throughout the text anecdotally, when Pinto describes incidents involving Muslims from his own perspective, often coupling these passages with value judgments through which Muḥammad is viewed as a false prophet, Islamic saints are declared wicked, and the religion is seen as a cursed sect. Samuel Purchas uses the terms ‘Moor’, ‘Musleman’, and ‘Mahomet’ in his English translation, but in the original text it seems that the terms Turco and Mafometico were prominent. In 1627-9, François Solier (1558-1638) published a two-volume history of the Jesuit mission to Japan entitled Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon. Here, Solier refers to a servant of Alessandro ­Valignano (1539-1606), and later retainer of daimyo Oda Nobunaga (153482), commonly known by the name Yasuke, who had recently come to Japan with his master. Solier describes the servant as a native of Mozambique, a More Cafre (kāfir) or Moorish infidel (vol. 1, p. 444), which may identify him as a Muslim, though his religious identity is of little importance to the author and is mentioned only in passing, with the narrative quickly moving to focus on the excitement with which Yasuke was met in Japan and on questions regarding the colour of his skin and other matters. The passage merely records the presence of Muslim slaves and employees as part of the Jesuit enterprise in Japan and in East Asia more generally. Significance Islam and Muslims feature for the most part as little more than footnotes in Christian histories and reports on Japan from this period, though this is to be expected as there were no Muslims in the country. Although some earlier 16th-century documents suggest that Muslims were trading with Japan, and although Muslims were certainly present as slaves, their presence was evidently much less important than other concerns. Whether or not Yasuke was a Muslim is debatable, though if he was, Solier’s references to him would provide clues to one instance of direct Muslim-Christian interaction in Japan, such as it was. In short, whatever records exist lack significance for Muslim-Christian relations in Japan precisely because Muslim-Christian interactions were hardly significant. Whilst Pinto’s work is important for the understanding of MuslimChristian interactions outside Japan, on Japan itself it offers little insight.

336

the jesuits in 17th-century japan

Publications Fernão Mendes Pinto and Belchior Fraria, Peregrinaçam de Fernam Mendez Pinto em que da conta de muytas e muyto estranhas cousas que vio & ouvio no reyno da China, no da Tartaria, no de Sornau, que vulgarmente se chama de Sião, no de Calaminhan, no do Pegù, no de Martauão, & em outros muytos reynos & senhorios das partes Orientais, de que nestas nossas do Occidente ha muyto pouca ou nenhua noticia. E tambem da conta de muytos casos particulares que acontecerão assi a elle como a outras muytas pessoas. E no fim della trata brevemente de alguas cousas, & da morte do Santo Padre Francisco Xavier, unica luz and resplandor daquellas partes do Oriente, & reitor nellas universal da Companhia de Iesus, Lisbon: Por Pedro Crasbeeck, 1614; res-4409-v (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) Fernão Mendes Pinto, Historia oriental de las peregrinaciones de Fernan Mendez Pinto portvgves, adonde se escriven muchas, y muy estrañas cosas que vio, y oyò en los reynos de la China, Tartaria, Sornao, que vulgarmente se llama Siam, Calamiñam, Peguu, Martauan, y otros muchos de aquellas partes orientales, de que en estas nuestras de Occidente ay muy poca, ò ninguna noticia. Casos famosos, acontecimientos admirables, leyes, gouierno, trages, religion, y costumbres de aquellos gentiles de Asia. Tradvzido de portvgves en castellano por el licenciado Francisco de Herrera Maldonado, canonigo de la Santa Yglesia Real de Arbas. A Manvel Severin de Faria, chantre, y canonigo de la Santa Yglesia Metropolitana de Euora, trans. Francisco de Herrera Malonado, Madrid: Por Tomas lunti, 1620, repr. 1627, 1645, 1664 (Spanish trans.); U/1211, 1664 ed. (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digital Hispánica) Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625 (English trans., summary); STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) (repr. Glasgow, 1906), vol. 12, pp. 59-141



the jesuits in 17th-century japan

337

Fernão Mendes Pinto, The voyages and adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal: during his travels for the space of one and twenty years in the Kingdoms of Ethiopia, China, Tartaria, Cauchinchina, Calaminham, Siam, Pegu, Japan, and a great part of the East-Indiaes. With a relation and description of most of the places thereof; their religion, laws, riches, customs, and government in time of peace and war. Where he five times suffered shipwrack, was sixteen times sold, and thirteen times made a slave. Written originally by himself in the Portugal tongue, and dedicated to the Majesty of Philip King of Spain. Done into English by H.C. Gent, ed. Henry Cogan, London: J Macock, 1653 (repr. 1663, 1692, 1891, 1969; English trans); Wing M1705 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Fernão Mendes Pinto, Wunderliche und merckwürdige Reisen Ferdinandi Mendez Pinto: welche er innerhalb ein und zwanzig Jahren durch Europa, Asia, und Africa, und deren Königreiche und Länder als Abbyssina, China, Japon, Tartarey, Siam, Calaminham. Pegu, Martabane, Bengale, Brama, Ormus, Batas, Queda, Aru, Pan, Ainan, Calempluy, Cauchenchina und andere Oerter verrichtet: darinnen er beschreibet wie ihme zu Wasser und Land zugestossene grosse Noht und Gefahr, wie er nemblich sey dreyzehnmal gefangen genommen und siebenzehnmal verkaufft worden, auch vielfältigen Schiffbruch erlitten habe: dabey zugleich befindlich eine gar genaue Entwerffung der Wunder und Raritäten erwehnter Länder, der Gesetze, Sitten, und Gewonheiten derselben Völcker, und der grosse Macht und Heeres-Krafft der Einwohner, ed. Dionigi de Carli, Amsterdam: Bey Heinrich und Dietrich Boom, 1671 (German trans.); VD17 3:659617T (digitalised version available through Zentralbibliothek Zürich) Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinaçam de Fernam Mendez Pinto, Lisbon, 1678 J.I. de Brito Rebello (ed.), Peregrinação de Fernão Mendes Pinto, Lisbon, 1908 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinação, ed. A.J. da Coasta Pimpao and C. Pegado, Porto, 1945 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinaçam. Texto primitivo, inteiramente conforme à primeira edição (1614), ed. A. Casais Monteiro, Lisbon, 1953 W.G. Armando (ed. and trans.), Peregrinaçam; oder, die seltsamen Abenteuer des Fernão Mendes Pinto. Freie Bearbeitung und Übertragung seiner Anno 1614 zu Lissabon herausgegebenen Memoiren, Hamburg, 1960 (German trans.)

338

the jesuits in 17th-century japan

Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinaçam, Porto, 1962 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinazione: 1537-1558, ed. G.C. Rossi, Milan, 1970 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinaçam, Tokyo, 1973 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Wunderliche und merkwürdige Reisen des Fernão Mendez Pinto, Berlin, 1979 (German trans.) Mendesu Pinto, Tōyō henreki ki, ed. Okamura Takiko, Tokyo, 1980 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinação, Lisbon, 1984 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Merkwürdige Reisen im fernsten Asien, 1537-1558, ed. and trans. R. Kroboth, Stuttgart, 1987 (German trans.) R.D. Catz (ed.), The travels of Mendes Pinto, Chicago IL, 1989 M. Lowery (ed. and trans.), The peregrination of Fernão Mendes Pinto. Soldier of fortune, trader, pirate, agent, ambassador, during twentyone years in Ethiopia, Persia, Malaya, India, Burma, Siam, CochinChina, East Indies, China, Japan. Sailing unchartered oriental seas, he was five times shipwrecked, thirteen times captured, sixteen times enslaved. He met a saint, repented his ways, returned home and wrote his story for his children and for posterity, Manchester, 1992 (abridged English trans.) Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinação, Lisbon, 2014 François Solier, Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon, Paris: Sebastien Cramoisy, 1627 (repr. 1629); 4 H.eccl. 738 k-1 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) François Solier, The history of the church of Japan, ed. J. Crasset, trans. N.N., London, 1705-7 (English trans.); ESTC T94112 (digitalised version available through ECCO) Studies T. Lockley, The story of Yasuke. Nobunaga’s African/Black retainer (forthcoming), 2016 Madigan, ‘Global visions in contestation’ Hosaka Shuji, ‘Japan and the Gulf’ Alden, The making of an enterprise S. Gonzagowski, ‘The subversion of empire as farce in Fernao Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinaçao’, in Z.S. DaSilva and G.M. Pell (eds), At whom are we laughing? Humour in Romance language literatures, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013, 31-40 James Harry Morris

Breve relación de la grande crueldad de Gentiles y Moros ‘Brief account of the great cruelty of the Gentiles and Moors’ Date 1631 Original Language Spanish Description Published in Barcelona in 1631, this short eight-page work (its title in full is Breve relación de la grande crueldad de Gentiles y Moros, contra los Predicadores Euangélicos del Orden de Santo Domingo, y Cofrades del Santíssimo Rosario, en las Filipinas, Iapón, y en las Indias Orientales, desde el Año 1617 hasta 1627, ‘Brief account of the great cruelty of the Gentiles and Moors against the Christian missionaries of the Dominican Order and Brothers of the Holy Rosary in the Philippines, Japan and East Indies, from 1617 to 1627’) contains an account of events set down in order to record and commemorate the Christian Dominican martyrs in Asia from 1617 to 1627. Special attention is given to the numerous missionaries persecuted and executed in Japan during the time, providing for each details of name, origin and the kind of martyrdom suffered. A complete list is given at the end of the account. Significance The document includes a short note about the three Dominicans killed by Muslims from the island of Solor in the Indian Ocean. It witnesses to the emerging use of the concept of Moro within the Asian context and the role of martyrdom in creating an Asian Christianity centred in Goa. Publications Breve relación de la grande crueldad de Gentiles y Moros, contra los Predicadores Euangélicos del Orden de Santo Domingo, y Cofrades del Santíssimo Rosario, en las Filipinas, Iapón, y en las Indias Orientales, desde el Año 1617 hasta 1627, Barcelona, 1631 Studies I. Donoso, ‘El islam en Filipinas’, Alicante, 2011 (Diss. University of Alicante ), pp. 579-80 Isaac Donoso

Diego de Bobadilla Date of Birth 19 September 1590 Place of Birth Madrid Date of Death 16 February 1648 Place of Death Carigara, Philippines

Biography

Diego de Bobadilla was born in 1590 to a wealthy family in Madrid. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1606, and arrived in the Philippines ten years later to serve as lecturer in philosophy and theology at the Jesuit school in Manila, and spent five years as principal of the Colegio de San José. In 1637, he returned to Spain after being nominated ecclesiastical provincial representative in Rome. However, he returned to the ­Philippines a few years later, together with 40 new missionaries, in response to the scarcity of preachers resulting from the risks involved in missions to the Muslim areas of Mindanao. He died in 1648, while administering the religious province. Bobadilla authored several key reports, letters and statements, and an unedited Tagalog grammar. He played an important role as a Jesuit figure in the crucial years of the conquest and evangelisation of Mindanao.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary P. Murillo Velarde, Historia de la provincia de Philipinas de la Compañía de Jesús: segunda parte, que comprehende los progresos de esta provincia desde el año de 1616 hasta el de 1716, Manila, 1749 F. Colín, Labor evangélica de los obreros de la Compañía de Jesús en las islas Filipinas, nueva edición ilustrada con copia de notas y documentos para la crítica de la Historia general de la soberanía de España en Filipinas por el padre Pablo Pastells, S.J., Barcelona, 1904, pp. 796-8 Secondary H. de la Costa, The Jesuits in the Philippines. 1581-1768, Cambridge MA, 1961, pp. 224-54 J. de Uriarte and M. Lecina, Biblioteca de escritores de la Companía de Jesús pertenecientes a la antigua asistencia de España desde sus orígenes hasta el año de 1773, Madrid, 1925, vol. 1, pp. 495-8



diego de bobadilla

341

F. Combés, Historia de Mindanao y Joló por el P. Francisco Combes de la Compañía de Jesús, obra publicada en Madrid en 1667, ed. P. Pastells and W.E. Retana, Madrid, 1897, p. 669 V. Barrantes, Guerras piráticas de Filipinas contra mindanaos y joloanos, Madrid, 1878, pp. 289-310

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Relación de las gloriosas victorias, ‘Account of glorious victories’ Date 1638 Original Language Spanish Description The Relación is a 41-folio document, written in Spanish and published in Mexico in 1638. Its full title is Relación de las gloriosas victorias que en mar, y tierra han tenido las Armas de nuestro invictísimo Rey, y Monarca Felipe IV, el Grande, en las islas Filipinas, contra los Moros mahometanos de la gran Isla de Mindanao, y su Rey Cachil Corralat, debajo de la conducta de Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, Caballero de la Orden de Alcántara, y del Consejo de Guerra de su Majestad, Gobernador y Capitán General de aquellas Islas. Sacada de varias relaciones que este año de 1638, vinieron de Manila. It contains an account of the conquest of the island of Mindanao by the Manila-based Spanish Governor-General Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera in 1637-8 over the Muslim ruler Cachil Corralat (Naṣīr al-Dīn Qudrat Allāh, c. 1619-71). In addition to Bobadilla’s account, the volume also contains two other documents: Cuentase el milagro que San Francisco Xavier Apostol de la India, obrò con el Padre Marcello Francisco Mastrillo, de la Compañia de JESUS (‘The story of the miracle performed by St Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, and Fr Marcello Francisco Mastrillo, of the Society of Jesus’, fols 1-8), and Carta del Padre Marcelo Francisco Mastrillo en que dà quenta al Padre Juan de Salaçar Provincial de la Compañia de JESUS en las Islas Filipinas, de la conquista de Mindanao (‘Letter from Fr Marcelo Francisco Mastrillo in which he tells Fr Juan de Salazar, Provincial of the Society of Jesuits in the Philippines, of the conquest of Mindanao’, fols 15v-37r). The Relación ends with a detailed description of the celebrations and parade in Manila to mark the arrival of the army and prisoners, and of seized Muslim handicrafts and flags.

342

diego de bobadilla

Bobadilla’s work constitutes a first-hand account of the conquest of Mindanao by the Spanish army from both religious and military perspectives. According to Mastrillo’s letter, Bobadilla accompanied Pampanga’s soldiers, and in his account he attempts to portray how St Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, had miraculously intervened in the conquest as, by saving Fr Mastrillo’s life in Italy, he allowed the latter to be present on the battlefield in the Philippines. After an account of the Neapolitan Marcello Francisco Mastrillo's (Mastrilli) difficult recovery from an illness that nearly cost him his life, Bobadilla creates an association between this and the conquest of the island of Mindanao. He begins by describing Mindanao and its Muslim population, recounting continuous conflict in the form of pirate attacks, the profaning of churches and the kidnapping of Christian preachers. He then gives a brief account of the main fighting against the Muslim ruler, Cachil Corralat, a central figure in the history of Islam in the Philippines; this is found in the Relación after Mastrillo’s letter. Corralat’s rise to power and rule over Mindanao are key events in the history of Islam in the Philippines, with his base in Tamontaca dominating Buhayen and Sibuguey and the regions of other local rulers. Not content with the title of Sultan of Mindanao, Corralat sought the title of caliph, which he believed would win the support of regional Muslim communities in resisting Christian attacks, portraying this as defending the dār al-Islām. This represents the first instance in the history of Islam in the Philippines of a coordinated Muslim religious response to European intervention. Bobadilla’s account offers valuable insights into the Christian Spanish response. Significance Bobadilla leaves no doubt that the Spanish fighting to take territory from the Muslims in Mindanao was not only supported and directed by God, but also blessed by him as well. The descriptions he gives of the celebrations in Manila after the conquest reflect an incipient Hispanic culture developing and transforming within the Asian environment, with parades, poetry contests, sermons and even the first stages of Filipino theatre. This theatre was established through a performance on 5 July 1637 of the play Gran comedia de la toma del pueblo de Corralat y conquista del Cerro (‘Grand comedy of the capture of Corralat’s town and the conquest of the hill’) by Fr Jerónimo Pérez. It pioneered a genre based on battles between Muslims and Christians, called moro-moro, which remains popular in the Philippines today.



diego de bobadilla

343

Publications Diego de Bobadilla, Relación de las gloriosas victorias que en mar, y tierra an tenido las Armas de nuestro invictíssimo Rey, y Monarca Felippe IIII. el Grande, en las islas Filipinas, contra los Moros mahometanos de la gran Isla de Mindanao, y su Rey Cachil Corralat, debaxo de la conducta de Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, Cavallero de la Orden de Alcántara, y del Consejo de Guerra de su Magestad, Governador y Capitán General de aquellas Islas. Sacada de varias relaciones que este año de 1638, vinieron de Manila, Mexico: Imprenta de Pedro de Quiñones, 1638; R/33185 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digital Hispánica) Diego de Bobadilla, ‘Relation de la grande isle de Mindanao, et de la conqueste qu’en ont fait les Espagnols’, in M. Melchisedec Thevenot, Relations de divers voyages curieux qui n’ont point este publiées: et qu’on a traduit ou tirédes originaux des voyageurs françois, espagnols, allemands, portugais, anglois, hollandois, persans, arabes & autres orientaux, données au public, le tout enrichi de figures, de plantes non décrites, d’animaux inconnus à l’Europe, & de cartes géographiques, qui n’ont point encore été publiées, Paris, 1696, vol. 1 (partial French trans. of his accounts, no pagination) Diego de Bobadilla, ‘Glorious victories against the Moros of Mindanao’, in H. Blair and J.A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Cleveland, 1903-9, vol. 29, pp. 86-101 (partial English trans.) Studies I. Donoso, ‘The Ottoman caliphate and Muslims of the Philippine Archipelago during the early modern era’, in A.C.S. Peacock and A. Teh Gallop (eds), From Anatolia to Aceh. Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia, London, 2015, 121-46 C.R. Guerrero, ‘Oceanía, el reverso de la medalla. Escasa presencia española en la actividad misionera’, Mutatis Mutandis 8 (2015) 83-109 I. Donoso, ‘The Hispanic Moros y Cristianos and the Philippine Komedya’, Philippine Humanities Review 11 (2010) 87-120 I. Donoso, ‘El Islam en las Letras Filipinas’, Studi Ispanici 32 (2007) 291-313 Isaac Donoso

Gonçalo Veloso de São José Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth India Date of Death 1652 Place of Death Sri Lanka

Biography

Not much is known about the life of Gonçalo Veloso de São José, except that he was an Indian-born Franciscan friar of Portuguese parentage who spent his entire life in Asia, and died in Sri Lanka in 1652. From 1629 to 1639 a man of this name served as head vicar of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa and Daman. Between 1641 and 1646, he served as a kind of diplomat on behalf of the Estado da Índia in Batavia, Goa and Sri Lanka. In addition to Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro, he authored two other texts: Relação das festas quando se jurou o Mistério da Conceição da Senhora na Índia em 1647, printed in Goa in 1648, and Relação do Bautismo Geral em Goa em 1648. Gonçalo Veloso de São José is known primarily as the author of Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro, an account of the journey undertaken to Aceh in 1638 by Francisco de Sousa de Castro, nobleman of the royal household of King Philip III of Portugal (r. 1621-40), as the leader of a Portuguese embassy, and his deeds and misadventures during the nearly three years he stayed in the capital of the Malay sultanate.

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro, ‘Journey of Francisco de Souza de Castro’ Date 1642 Original Language Portuguese Description The Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro is a detailed account of the ill-fated Portuguese embassy sent by the Estado da Índia in 1638 to the powerful Malay Sultanate of Aceh, situated on the northern tip of Sumatra (Indonesia), focusing on the experiences of the Portuguese



gonçalo veloso de são josé

345

nobleman Francisco de Sousa de Castro, who was chosen by Viceroy Pedro da Silva (r. 1635-9) to lead the embassy. It covers 53 unnumbered folios and its full title is Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro, fidalgo da casa de sua magestade & do seu conselho, commendador de S. Miguel de Lauradas, fez ao Achem com huma importante embaixada, enviado pelo viso-rei da India Pero da Silva no anno de 1638 (‘Journey of Francisco de Souza de Castro, gentleman of the Royal Household and of His Council, commendatary of São Miguel de Lavradas, to Aceh with an important embassy sent by the Viceroy Pero da Silva in the year of 1638’). It was published in Goa in 1642. Aceh and the Portuguese had been traditional trade and military adversaries since at least the 1520s, when Aceh became a major regional player in the Straits of Malacca. Diplomatic and commercial relations between Aceh and the Portuguese oscillated between conflict and truce, never reaching as far as peace or collaboration. Aceh’s role as a major producer and exporter of pepper to markets in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and, from the mid-16th century onwards, its military and religious alliance with the Ottoman Empire, exacerbated its tense relations with the Portuguese. Aceh attempted to conquer the city of Malacca, under Portuguese rule since 1511, on several occasions during the 16th and early 17th centuries. The most forceful attack was launched in 1629, during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607-36), considered the golden age of the sultanate. However, the Portuguese defeated Aceh and the conflict was suspended for some years. After the death of Sultan Iskandar Muda in 1636, and the ascent to power of Sultan Iskandar Thānī (r. 1636-41), the Estado da Índia sought an understanding with Aceh. This diplomatic policy of the Portuguese towards Aceh provided the context for the 1638 Portuguese embassy of which Francisco de Sousa de Castro was part. Gonçalo Veloso de São José’s narrative concentrates largely on the nearly three years that Francisco de Sousa de Castro spent in the capital of Aceh. Political instability following the death of Sultan Iskandar Muda, along with de Sousa de Castro’s inability to deal with the complex and turbulent political life of the Sultanate, including conflicts with European rivals, (i.e. the Dutch, who were also seeking an understanding with Aceh) and his general ignorance about the rules and rituals of Malay diplomacy resulted in his failure to fulfil the royal protocol for foreign embassies, and he was imprisoned in Aceh for two years and eight months. He was finally released in July 1641 by the new Acehnese ruler, Sultanah Tajul Alam Safiatuddin Syah (r. 1641-75), thanks to the

346

gonçalo veloso de são josé

Illustration 9. View of Batavia showing the Dutch fort and settlement, from Pieter van den Broecke, Korte historial, 1616 (image by Adriaen Matham)

intervention of a Dutch ambassador in Aceh, and was taken to Batavia, the regional capital of the VOC. The text of the Jornada provides details about the conditions of de Sousa de Castro’s incarceration, and the torture experienced by him and his entourage, leading, in many cases, to their death. However, the text also paints a vivid picture of the cosmopolitan society of Aceh (home to numerous foreigners, European and Asian alike), along with some relevant information about the ‘hidden world’ of the Portuguese (and Luso-Asian) renegades, some of whom converted to Islam not only as a method of survival, but also as a means of social advancement. In addition, the Jornada provides important details about the architectural structure and everyday life of the Acehnese royal palace in the mid-17th century. Significance The Jornada is one of the best examples of 17th-century Portuguese literature on martyrdom within an Asian context. The Sultanate of Aceh is perhaps one of the favourite ‘scenarios’ for this kind of literature, some of which was printed and circulated among Portuguese cultural elites with remarkable success. These accounts of the torture or killing of priests, merchants, soldiers and ambassadors in several Asian Muslim states, for



gonçalo veloso de são josé

347

allegedly religious reasons, were of great value to the Portuguese Crown in pursuing both their internal and external political agendas. In addition, they provided propaganda for the main religious orders in Portugal and helped legitimise the political-military and religious expansion into Asia. If there are similar cases of Muslim martyrdom in the fight against the Portuguese Christians in the Muslim states bordering the Indian Ocean, this is not reflected in the literature from the 16th and 17th centuries. An aspect of the text that could be worth further exploration is the latent tension between Islam as it was interpreted and practised by the local elite and its proponents from the Middle East in respect to theological issues and tolerance towards the Christian ‘other’. Finally, it offers interesting information for the study of the history of the Estado da Índia, its geostrategic conceptions for the Indian Ocean, and the social world of the Portuguese in Asia. Publications Gonçalo Veloso de São José OFM, Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro fidalgo da casa de sua magestade e do seu conselho, comendador de Sam Miguel de Lavradas, fez ao Achem com hũa importante embaixada enviado pelo V. Rey da India Pero da Sylva no Anno de 1638, Goa: Colégio de São Paulo Novo, 1642 C.R. Boxer, ‘Uma obra raríssima impressa em Goa no século XVII’, Boletim Internacional de Bibliografia Luso-Brasileira 8 (1967) 431-527 J. Santos Alves, Notícias de missionação e martírio na Índia e Insulíndia, Lisbon, 1989, pp. 184-219 Studies S.B.A. Latiff Khan, ‘Rule behind the silk curtain. The Sultanahs of Aceh, 1641-1699’, London, 2009 (Diss. University of London) J. Santos Alves, ‘Os mártires do Achém nos séculos XVI e XVII. Islão versus Cristianismo?’, Congresso Internacional de História Missiona­ ção Portuguesa e Encontro de Culturas-Actas, Braga, 1993, vol. 2, pp. 391-407 Boxer, ‘Uma obra raríssima impressa em Goa no século XVII’ D. Lombard, Le Sultanat d’Atjeh au temps d’Iskandar Muda (1607-1636), Paris, 1967 Jorge Santos Alves

Wang Daiyu Date of Birth Approximately 1590 Place of Birth Nanjing Date of Death Approximately 1658 Place of Death Beijing

Biography

Wang Daiyu claimed to be the descendent of an Arab astronomer who had travelled to China with his family in the 14th century and settled at Nanjing. In recognition of his expertise in astronomy, this ancestor had been appointed to the Directorate of Astronomy. Wang himself was educated in a traditional mosque and mastered Persian and Arabic. Unlike other Muslim students who only learned about Islam and were not educated in the Chinese tradition, Wang later studied Chinese and the Chinese classics, and by the age of 30 had also studied Buddhist and Daoist philosophy. At the time it was rare for Muslim scholars to be familiar with both the Islamic and Chinese traditions, so he came to be highly regarded as a Chinese Muslim scholar of the doctrines of all the ‘four teachings’ (Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and Islam). Wang has long been widely regarded as a pioneer of the use of the Confucian philosophical framework and vocabulary to expound Islam, a practice known as Han-Kitāb. His influential writings include the trilogy Zhengjiao zhenquan, Qing zhen da xue and Xi zhen zheng da. More importantly, there is a strong likelihood that Wang Daiyu, whether through his Chinese teacher Ma Junshi, or as an autodidact, gained access to Jesuit teachings. If this was the case, it marks the first instance of MuslimChristian intellectual encounter during the epoch of Imperial China.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Yu Zhengui, Wang Daiyu, Ningxia, 1986 Wang Daiyu, Zhengjiao zhenquan, Qing zhen da xue, Xi zhen zheng da, ed. Yu Zhengui, Ningxia, 1987



wang daiyu

349

Secondary Z. Ben-Dor Benite, ‘“Western gods meet in the East”. Shapes and contexts of the Muslim-Jesuit dialogue in early modern China’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Orient 55 (2011) 517-46 Jin Yijiu, Wang Daiyu Si Xiang Yan Jiu, Beijing, 2008 Sachiko Murata, Chinese gleams of Sufi light. Wang Tai-yü’s great learning of the pure and real and Liu Chih’s displaying the concealment of the real realm, Albany NY, 2000

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Zheng jiao zhen quan, ‘The real commentary on the true teaching’ ‘The true explanation of the orthodox teaching’ Date 1642 Original Language Chinese Description Wang’s Zheng jiao zhen quan is divided into two volumes, each with 20 chapters. It covers 120 pages in the 1921 edition, of which two pages (pp. 26-7) address the topic of Christian-Muslim relations. In Book 1, in a chapter entitled ‘Changing the real’ (i-chen), Wang explicates Islam in relation to other religious traditions. He criticises Daoism and B ­ uddhism for failing to distinguish between the Real One (chen-i), the divine essence that has nothing to do with existent things, and the Numerical One (shu-i), the origin of the universe and the beginning of all existent things. In the same chapter, he implicitly criticises Christian doctrines. First, he emphasises the transcendent nature of God in creating the universe, and he distinguishes the divine lordship of the Real One from the human status of servanthood. The distinction between the Lord and creation forbids servants (humankind) to call the nameless Lord ‘Father’. Second, it seems Wang opposes any notion that the ‘Lord descends to the earth’, which corresponds to the Christian doctrine of Incarnation. He argues instead that the Lord cannot become as a servant who is under the subordination of the Real One. This would be a reduction of divinity. Third, by upholding the uncompromising unicity of the Real One (chen-i), he refutes the Christian idea of divinity conceptualised as a Triune God.

350

wang daiyu

Significance Wang’s work in the late Ming period has been regarded as a pioneering endeavour within the wider intellectual history of translating and writing Islamic scripture in Chinese (referred to as Han-Kitāb), a history that runs from the Imperial Ming to the Qing period in China. The appearance of Zheng jiao zhen quan in 1642 was the first major literary contribution by Confucian Muslims, the so-called Huiru. Moreover, Wang’s readership was not confined to the Muslim community, but extended to the broader Chinese literati from various religious traditions, primarily Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and, perhaps, the new foreign faith of Christianity that accompanied the expansion of Western imperialism, and which fully impacted in the late Qing period. His book engages interreligious dialogue and heralded an intellectual era of later MuslimChristian exchanges and debates in the Qing period, as well as beyond. Publications Wang Daiyu, Zheng jiao zhen quan, Beijing, 1921 Wang Daiyu, Zheng jiao zhen quan, Qing zhen da xue, Xi zhen zheng da, ed. Yu Zhengui Murata, Chinese gleams of Sufi light, pp. 19-68 Studies Xu Shujie and Yu Pengxiang, ‘Zaoqi zhongguo musilin xuezhe dui jidujiao de taidu’ [Early Chinese Muslim intellectuals’ attitude towards Christianity], Social Science Front 4 (2013) 265-6 Benite, ‘ “Western gods meet in the East” ’ Jin, Wang Daiyu Si Xiang Yan Jiu, pp. 62-97 Murata, Chinese gleams of Sufi light, pp. 19-68 Wai Yip Ho

Álvaro de Semedo Alvarez Semedo, Alvarus de Semedo, Zeng Dezhao, Xie Wulu, Sai Moduo Date of Birth 1585 or 1586 Place of Birth Nisa, Portugal Date of Death 1658 or 1659 Place of Death Beijing

Biography

Álvaro Semedo was born in 1585 or 1586 in Nisa, Portugal. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1602 and departed for East Asia in 1608, completing his studies in Goa. He arrived in Nanking in 1613 and spent the majority of his career in southern China. He was imprisoned in 1616 during a period of anti-Christian persecution and following that was exiled to Macau until 1621. In 1625, he travelled to Xian and studied the newly uncovered Nestorian Stele (Chinese: Da qin jing jiao liu xing zhong guo bei). Promoted to the position of procurator in 1636, he departed for Europe in order to assist with gaining church support and new recruits. He returned as vice-provincial of the China mission, and was based in Canton from 1649 until his death in 1658 or 1659.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Álvaro de Semedo, Imperio de la China, i cultura evangelica en èl, por los religios de la Compañia de Iesus: Compuesto por el padre Alvaro Semmedo de la propria Compañia, natural de la villa de Nisa en Portugal, procurador general de la prouincia de la China, de donde fue embiado a Roma al año de 1640. Publicado por Manuel de Faria i Sousa Cavallero de la orden de Christo, i de la casa real. Dedicado al glorioso padre S. Francisco Xavier, religioso de la Compañia de Iesus, i segundo apostel de la Assia, Madrid: Impresso por luan Sanchez, 1642 Secondary D.E. Mungello, Curious land. Jesuit accommodation and the origins of Sinology, Honolulu HI, 1989

352

álvaro de semedo

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Relação da propagação da fé no reyno da China e outros adjacentes, ‘Account of the propagation of the faith of the Kingdom of China, and neighbouring places’ Date 1641 Original Language Portuguese Description Relação da propagação da fé no reyno da China e outros adjacentes was completed in Goa in 1638 as Semedo made his way back to Europe. It was published in various languages in the early 1640s during his visits to Lisbon, Madrid and Portugal. The original Portuguese version of 1641 is less known than the Spanish translation prepared by Manuel de Faria y Souza (1590-1649) and published the following year, so most sources give the Spanish title Imperio de la China. This translation is 384 pages long (making it the longest version). The English version was originally published in 1655. In Chapter 30 of this version, the penultimate chapter of the first part of the book, Semedo refers to Muslims, Jews and other nations present in China (pp. 152-4). His treatment of them is quite distinct from his treatment of Chinese religions in Chapter 18. The central theme of the passage is the separateness of Muslims from the Chinese. He notes that Muslims are widespread throughout the country, speak Chinese, and are knowledgeable of their scripture (although not always religiously orthodox), but know little of their own (Arabic) language. On the one hand, he observes that they are indistinguishable from Chinese in terms of appearance but, on the other, he argues that they strive to preserve their national identity by marrying from within their community or by marrying Chinese women who, by entering a Muslim family, have become ‘Moors’. In line with his theme of separateness, Semedo asserts that the Muslims are despised by the Chinese, and that the Chinese are despised by the Muslims to such an extent that Muslims offer assistance from their centres only to fellow Muslims. Nevertheless, he notes that, historically, Moorish military assistance led successive governments to grant Muslims the same privileges as native Chinese, allowing them to maintain mosques, multiply, and eventually take governmental roles (although he argues that they generally do not advance to higher ranks). He also



álvaro de semedo

353

notes the existence of regular embassies from various Moorish kingdoms and the conversion to Islam of Jews living in China. Elsewhere, Semedo makes fleeting references to Islam and Muslim nations, termed variously Saracens, Arabs, Moors, Mohammedans etc., mostly within the context of trade and diplomacy. Semedo’s treatment of Islam is far from polemical, but it contains a certain degree of negativity and anti-Islamism. Such negativity is captured within his central thesis that Muslims are foreign to China, which perhaps, when linked to passages exploring historic Christian communities in China, seeks to place Christians in a position where they have greater claims to indigenous identity (having also been present in China’s past) than their Muslim counterparts. He does praise the Muslims in one respect, however, in that their abstinence from pork has led to the introduction of the consumption of beef in areas with Muslim populations. Significance Some of Semedo’s claims match those of Matteo Ricci, Nicolas Trigault and others, though the text became highly important in its own right for bringing the European population descriptive information on China. Its ongoing relevance is illustrated by the large number of translations made. Whilst references to Muslims and Islam are extensive in comparison with other texts on China written in the period, it cannot be claimed that they occupy a significant position in the text and it is unlikely that they greatly affected conceptions of the religion; the text’s popularity was based on other factors. Nevertheless, as with the work of Ricci and Trigault, Semedo’s claims vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims are repeated by contemporaneous and later scholars. Like the majority of early 17th-century works, Semedo primarily refers to Muslims and Islam through the use of ethnic categories. Although, as noted, the text takes a somewhat anti-Islamic approach, it is primarily descriptive and historical in genre. In comparison with other texts of the period, the work provides much greater insights into Islam in China, some of which appear to be new concepts, such as changing national identities. It is also noteworthy that, in spite of the general anti-Islamic approach, Muslims are praised for being more in line with European conceptions of civilisation, demonstrated by their introducing the consumption of beef. Publications Álvaro de Semedo, Relação da propagação da fé no reyno da China e outros adjacentes, Madrid, 1641

354

álvaro de semedo

Manuel de Faria y Souza (trans.), Imperio de la China, i cultura evangelica en èl, por los religios de la Compañia, de Iesus: Compuesto por el padre Alvaro Semmedo de la propria Compañia, natural de la villa de Nisa en Portugal, procurador general de la prouincia de la China, de donde fue embiado a Roma al año de 1640. Publicado por Manuel de Faria i Sousa Cavallero de la orden de Christo, i de la casa real. Dedicado al glorioso padre S. Francisco Xavier, religioso de la Compañia de Iesus, i segundo apostel de la Assia, Madrid: Impresso por luan Sanchez, 1642 (Spanish trans.); res-4763-p digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) G.B. Giattini (trans.), Relatione della grande monarchia della Cina: Del P. Alvaro Semedo portughese della Compagnia di Gesu, Rome: Sumptibus Hermann Scheus, 1643 (Italian trans.; repr. 1653, 1678); 4 H.as. 816, 1643; H.as. 4580 d-1/2, 1678 (digitalised versions available from Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) L. Coulon (trans.), Histoire universelle du grand royaume de la Chine, composée en Italien par le P. Alvarez Semedo Portugais, de la Compagnie de Jésus, et traduite en notre langue par Louis Coulon P., divisée en deux parties, Paris: Sebastien Cramoisy, 1645 (French trans.; repr. in two forms in 1667); BNF31350224 (digitalised version available through BNF) Álvaro de Semedo, The history of that great and renowned monarchy of China. Wherein all the particular provinces are accurately described: as also the dispositions, manners, learning, lawes, militia, government, and religion of the people. Together with the traffick and commodities of that countrey: Lately written in Italian by F. Alvarez Semedo, a Portuguese, after he had resided twenty two years at the court, and other famous cities of that kingdom. Now put in to English by a person of quality and illustrated with several mapps and figures, to satisfie the curious, and advance the trade of Great Brittain. To which is added the History of the late invasion and conquest of that flourishing kingdom by the Tartars. With an exact account of the affairs of China till these present times, London: E. Tyler for Iohn Cook, 1655 (English trans.); Wing S2490 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Studies A. Chan, Chinese books and documents from the Jesuit archives in Rome. A descriptive catalogue, London, 20152



álvaro de semedo

355

N. Koss, ‘  “The history of that great renowned monarchy of China” by Alvarez Semedo as a work of proto-English sinology’, Lumen: A Journal of Catholic Studies 1 (2013) 115-36 L.M. Brockey, Journey to the East. The Jesuit mission to China, 1579-1724, Cambridge MA, 2007 Mungello, Curious land Chen Mingsheng, ‘China in the early seventeenth-century. Alvarez Semedo’s “History of the great and renowned monarchy of China” ’, Annals of Philippine Chinese Historical Association 8 (1978) 20-79 R. Löwenthal, ‘The early Jews in China. A supplementary bibliography’, Folklore Studies 5 (1946) 353-98 James Harry Morris

Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī Nūr al-Dīn ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥasanjī ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥamīd al-Shāfiʿī l-Ashʿarī l-ʿAydarūsī l-Rānīrī Date of Birth Late 16th century Place of Birth Rānīr (present-day Rander), Gujarat, India Date of Death 21 September 1658 Place of Death India

Biography

Information about the early life of Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī is limited. His full name points to his likely place of birth, his identification with the Shāfiʿī legal school and his having studied taṣawwuf with the founder of the ʿAdarūsiyya order, Sayyid ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd Allāh Bā Shaybān al-ʿAydarūsī (d. 1656). It is also likely that he was of Ḥaḍramī ancestry. Al-Rānīrī undertook a ḥajj to the Arabian sacred sites in 1620/1. According to his monumental seven-volume historical work, Bustān al-salaṭīn, he arrived in Aceh in 1637 to take up an appointment as Shaykh al-Islām under the new sultan, Iskandar Thānī. He remained in this position for seven years before being driven from Aceh by adversaries who were championing the cause of his successor, Sayf al-Rijāl. Al-Rānīrī wrote 14 works during his time in Aceh, and up to approximately twice that number throughout his lifetime, covering a range of the Islamic sciences: theology, law, traditions and Sufism, as well as writing on history. Al-Rānīrī was a dedicated polemicist, and he was the principal driving force behind several instances of book burning and a number of executions. In much of his writing, he bitterly attacked those followers of the Wujūdiyya whom he deemed heretical, especially the followers of the two famous earlier Acehnese Sufi scholars, Ḥamza Fanṣūrī and Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī. However, at times his ire was turned on adherents of other faiths, especially Christians. His style as Shaykh al-Islām was divisive, and his tenure of the position was marked by great social and religious turmoil. After being driven from Aceh, al-Rānīrī returned to his native Rānīr, where he spent the remaining 14 years of his life writing on various subjects, including matters of debate that had arisen during his time in Aceh.



nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

357

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary T. Iskandar, Nuru’d-din ar-Raniri, Bustanu’s-salatin, Bab II, Fasal 13, Kuala Lumpur, 1966 R. Jones, Nuru’d-din ar-Raniri, Bustanu’s-salatin, Bab IV, Fasal 1. A critical edition and translation of the first part of Fasal I, which deals with Ibrahim ibn Adham, Kuala Lumpur, 1974 C.A. Grinter, ‘Book IV of the Bustan us-salatin by Nuruddin ar-Raniri. A study from manuscripts of a 17th century Malay work written in North Sumatra’, London, 1979 (PhD Diss. School of Oriental and African Studies) Secondary P. Wormser, Le Bustan al-salatin de Nuruddin ar-Raniri. Réflexions sur le rôle culturel d’un étranger dans le monde malais au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 2012 J. Harun, Bustān al-salaṭīn (The garden of kings). A Malay mirror for rulers, Penang, 2009, pp. 14-25 A. Azra, The origins of Islamic reformism in Southeast Asia. Networks of MalayIndonesian and Middle Eastern ʿulamāʾ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Honolulu, 2004, pp. 52-9 V. Braginsky, The heritage of traditional Malay literature, Singapore, 2004 P.G. Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian world. Transmission and responses, London, 2001, pp. 116-25 K.A. Steenbrink, ‘Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the writings of Nur al-Din al-Raniri’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 1 (1990) 192-207 A. Daudy, ‘Tinjauan atas “Al-Fath al-mubin ‘ala al-mulhidin” karya Syaikh Nuruddin ar-Raniri’, in A.R. Hasan (ed.), Warisan intelektual Islam Indonesia, Bandung: Mizan, 1987, 21-38 S.M.N. al-Attas, A commentary on the Hujjat al-siddiq of Nur al-Din al-Raniri, Kuala Lumpur, 1986 T. Ito, ‘The world of the Adat Aceh. A historical study of the Sultanate of Aceh’, Canberra, 1984 (PhD Diss. Australian National University) A. Daudy, Allah dan Manusia dalam konsepsi Syeikh Nuruddin ar-Raniri, Jakarta: C.V. Rajawali, 1983 A. Daudy, Syeikh Nuruddin ar-Raniry, Jakarta: Bulan Bintang, 1978, pp. 9-18 T. Ito, ‘Why did Nuruddin ar-Raniri leave Aceh in 1054 AH?’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 134 (1978) 489-91 S.M.N. al-Attas, Raniri and the Wujudiyyah of 17th century Aceh (Monographs of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 3), Singapore, 1966, pp. 12-17 T. Iskandar, ‘Nuruddin ar-Raniri Pengarang Abad ke-17’, Dewan Bahasa 8 (1964) 436-41 Tudjimah, Asrār al-insān fī maʿrifat al-rūḥ wa-l-raḥmān, Djakarta: Penerbitan Universitas, 1961

358

nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

P. Voorhoeve, ‘Short note. Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 115 (1959) 90-1 P. Voorhoeve, ‘Lijst der geschriften van Rānīrī en apparatus criticus bij de tekst van twee verhandelingen’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 111 (1955) 152-61 P. Voorhoeve, ‘Van en over Nūruddīn ar- Rānīrī’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 107 (1951) 353-68

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ḥujjat al-ṣiddīq li-daf ʿ al-zindīq, ‘The proof of the truthful in refuting the heretic’ Date 1641-4 Original Language Arabic Description The Arabic and Malay text of this work contained in the London manuscript occupies 27 pages, of which only two make direct reference to Christians. In this work, al-Rānīrī sets out to refute what he considered to be the pantheistic teachings of his two predecessors as spiritual leaders in the Sultanate of Aceh. He establishes a clear dichotomy at the outset, declaring, ‘. . . whoever has the fine succour of God then he would assuredly follow them, but as for him who fails to follow them, verily he is from amongst the Deviators and the Zindīqs’ (al-Attas, Raniri and the Wujudiyyah, p. 98; references that follow are to this work unless otherwise stated). Al-Rānīrī categorises doctrines regarding the being of God according to the four schools of Islamic thought he identifies: the theologians, the Sufis, the philosophers and the Wujūdiyya, or those adhering to the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd, of which there are two groups: the true and the heretical. He considers the founder of wujūdī thinking, Ibn al-ʿArabī, as a follower of truth. However, he declares, the heretical Wujūdiyya consider that ‘. . . the creatures are God’s Being and the Being of God is the being of the creatures . . . nothing exists but God’ (p. 98). He warns of violent retribution for such heretics, insisting that they are deserving of death and fire. It is at this point that al-Rānīrī’s polemic equates the heretical Wujūdiyya with Christians. He cites qur’anic verses in support of his views:



nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

359

Their sayings and belief are like those of the Christians who say that Jesus is the son of God. As God most exalted says: “And the Christians say that the Messiah is the son of God” [Q 9:30]. Some of them . . . that God is the third of three, as God says: “They have become unbelievers who say that verily God is the third of three” [Q 5:73]. And some of them say that the prophet Jesus is in fact God. Furthermore the Christians maintain that God descended from the realm of divinity . . . into that of humanity . . . and that having done so He proceeded to return to the sphere of divinity. Such sayings and beliefs are a rejection of the truth, for God says: “They have disbelieved who say that God is Jesus son of Mary” [Q 5:72] (pp. 104-5).

After further polemic against the heretical Wujūdiyya, al-Rānīrī restates the link between this group and Christians: ‘Thus whosoever wishes to interpret God as the Universe and the Universe as God, and man – so they say – is God, then he has committed perfidy against God and His Messenger, and has upheld as true the beliefs of the Jews and the Christians’ (pp. 104-5). Similar references critical of Christianity are found in other works by al-Rānīrī. Elsewhere, he portrays the biblical materials as falsified, and therefore suitable for being used as toilet paper. Furthermore, in describing Jews and Christians he tends to favour the term kuffār (infidels) over ahl al-kitāb (People of the Book) (Steenbrink, Jesus, pp. 194-5). Significance The extent of reference to Christians in this work is limited. However, the significance of the views expressed in these brief references is increased by the polemical discussion that precedes them. In effect, al-Rānīrī suggests that the measure of heresy among the ‘heretical Wujūdiyya’ can be gauged by the extent to which their views resemble those of Christians. For him, it is evidently a given that Christian doctrines regarding the nature of Jesus Christ represent heresy, so a method of delegitimising the views of his opponents is to equate them with Christian views. This may well provide a window into his own context, whereby the equating of any contentious Muslim group with Christians was a device to undermine the authority of the group concerned. Al-Rānīrī was driven out of Aceh in 1644, so the impact of this work and his other writings in providing a template for future ChristianMuslim interaction must have been limited. Nevertheless, similar views are found in later Muslim polemical writing from the region, and for

360

nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

some Muslims, at least, al-Rānīrī no doubt played a role in shaping and supporting negative attitudes towards Christians. Publications MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – Maxwell 93, pp. 119-45 (1772, copied by Encik Abdul Aziz; full Malay text) MS Jakarta, National Library of Indonesia – 420 Malay (date unknown; fragmentary) Leiden University – Microfilm FOr. A 12b; copy of MS London P. Voorhoeve, Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen, Leiden, 1955 (includes facsimile copy of RAS MS Maxwell no. 93) al-Attas, Raniri and the Wujudiyyah (includes transliteration, English trans. and facsimile copy of RAS MS Maxwell no. 93) S.M.N. al-Attas, The mysticism of Hamzah Fansūrī, Kuala Lumpur, 1970, Appendix IV, pp. 485-9 (excerpts) al-Attas, Commentary on the Hujjat al-siddīq (Arabic text, pp. 53-79, and English trans., pp. 83-106) Studies Steenbrink, ‘Jesus and the Holy Spirit’ al-Attas, Commentary on the Hujjat al-siddiq Kun Zachrun Istanti, ‘Pembahasan naskah Hujjat al-siddik li daf al-zindik’, Yogyakarta, 1981 (MA Diss. Gajah Mada University) S.M.N. al-Attas, Comments on the re-examination of al-Raniri’s Hujjatu’l siddiq. A refutation, Kuala Lumpur, 1975 S.M.N. al-Attas, Some aspects of Sufism as understood and practised among the Malays, Singapore, 1963 Voorhoeve, Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī Peter Riddell

Tibyān fī maʿrifat al-adyān, ‘An exposition on the understanding of the religions’ Date Between 1641-4 Original Language Jawi Malay



nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

361

Description This work was commissioned by the Acehnese Sultana Ṣafiyyat al-Dīn Shāh (r. 1641-75). It occupies around 130 manuscript pages and draws heavily on Kitāb al-tamḥīd by Abū Shukūr Muḥammad al-Sālimī (d. c. 1080). Al-Rānīrī’s major goal in this work is to undertake a study of the world’s religions and to make an assessment of the truth of other faiths. The first part considers the religions of the world apart from Islam, while the second part is devoted to a study of Islam and its 72 sects. In discussing Christianity in the first part, al-Rānīrī reports that some Sunnī scholars recount that Jesus was able to recite the Torah, having received revelation directly from God. The Jews did not believe him so, in an unusual twist to the biblical timeline, the prophet Ezra was raised from the dead and testified that Jesus was correct. Satan intervened, declaring Jesus and Ezra to be sons of God, thus corrupting the message of Jesus. Al-Rānīrī engages in a further polemic against an unnamed Jewish scholar, almost certainly the Apostle Paul, who serves as the teacher of Nestor, Jacob and Melchion, after whom are named three Christian sects, the Nestorians, Jacobites and Melkites. They in turn contribute to the further corruption of the message received by Jesus, resulting in Christianity’s divergence from God’s revealed word. In this work, al-Rānīrī describes Christians as ‘a wicked people’. These references supplement other sporadic mentions of Christians in his Bustān al-salaṭīn and Ḥujjat al-ṣiddīq li-dafʿ al-zindīq, emphasising his attitude of exclusivism and hostility towards Christians and Christianity. Significance This work represents a pioneering study of comparative religion in the Malay world. Although the polemic against Christianity only represents a relatively small part of the work, it is consistent with prior and later accusations of the corruption of Christianity at the hands of Paul and his students. Publications MS Aceh, Aceh Province Museum – 4209/07.1437, 903/07.26 (date unknown) MS Aceh, Ali Hasjmy Museum and Foundation – 11 A/TS/1/YPAH/2005, 172/TS/3/YPAH/2005 (date unknown) MS Amsterdam, Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen – 0/271 (date unknown) MS Breda, Koninklijk Militaire Academie – 6557 (date unknown)

362

nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

MS Leiden, Leiden University Library – Cod. Or. 3291 (date unknown) MS Kuala Lumpur, Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia – 1533 (date unknown) MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – Marsden 12210, 92 pp. (date unknown) MS Aceh Besar (private, date unknown) MS Kuala Lumpur (private, date unknown) C.A.O. van Niewenhuijze, ‘Nur al-Din al-Raniri als Bestrijder der Wudjudiya’, Bijdragen tot de Taal, Land- en Volkenkunde 104 (1948) 337-411 (facsimile of fols 47v-57r of MS Leiden Cod. Or. 3291 reproduced on pp. 370-89) K.A. Steenbrink, Kitab suci atau kertas toilet? Nuruddin ar-Raniri dan agama Kristen, Yogyakarta, 1988 (transliterated excerpt, pp. 43-8) P. Voorhoeve, Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī (facsimile copy of entire work) A.T. Wasim, ‘Tibyan fi ma’rifat al-adyan. Suntingan Teks, Karya Intelektual Muslim dan Karya Sejarah Agama-agama Abad ke-17’, Yogyakarta, 1996 (PhD Diss. Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan ­Kalijaga) Sangidu, Tibyan fi ma’rifat al-adyan. Tinjauan Pernaskahan dan Penyuntingan, unpublished manuscript, Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, 1996 Mohd Noh b. Abdul Jalil, ‘Al-Raniri’s perceptions of other religions in his book Tibyan fi ma‘rifah al-adyan’, Kuala Lumpur, 2002 (MA Diss. International Islamic University Malaysia) Mohd Rushdan Bin Mohd Jailani, An annotated translation and transliteration of Tibyan fi ma‘rifat al-adyan of Nur al-Din al-Raniri, Kuala Lumpur, 2003 K.A. Steenbrink, ‘Nuruddin ar-Raniri (d. 1658 CE). Malay texts about Jews and Christians by an Indian Muslim’, in B. Roggema, M. Poorthuis and P. Valkenberg (eds), The three rings. Textual studies in the historical trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Leuven, 2005 (trans. of sections referring to Christians, based on Voorhoeve, Twee Maleise geschriften, pp. 31-40) Studies P. Wormser, Le Bustan al-salatin de Nuruddin ar-Raniri. Réflexions sur le rôle culturel d’un étranger dans le monde malais au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 2012



nūr al-dīn al-rānīrī

363

Hermansyah, ‘Tibyan fi ma’rifat al-Adyan. Tipologi Aliran Sesat di Aceh Abad 17 Menurut Nur al-Din al-Raniri’, Jakarta, 2011 (MA Diss. UIN Syarif Hidayatullah) Steenbrink, ‘Nuruddin ar-Raniri (d. 1658 CE). Malay texts’, pp. 237-53 Sangidu, ‘Wachdatul-Wujûd dalam Mâ’ul-Chayât li Ahlil-Mamât. Analisis Resepsi terhadap Konsep Maujud dan Wujud dalam Tibyân, Mir’atul-Muchaqqiqîn, Syarabul-Âsyiqîn, al-Muntahî, dan Suntingan Teks’, Yogyakarta, 2002 (PhD Diss. Gajah Mada University) Steenbrink, ‘Jesus and the Holy Spirit’ Steenbrink, Kitab suci atau kertas toilet? K.A. Steenbrink, ‘The study of comparative religion by Indonesian Muslims’, Numen 37 (1990) 141-67 Voorhoeve, Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī Van Niewenhuijze, ‘Nur al-Din al-Raniri als Bestrijder der Wudjudiya’ Peter Riddell and Ervan Nurtawab

Cornelis Speelman Cornelis Janszoon Speelman Date of Birth 3 March 1628 Place of Birth Rotterdam Date of Death 11 January 1684 Place of Death Batavia

Biography

Nothing is known about the early years of Cornelis Speelman. He left Rotterdam at the age of 16 for Batavia, where he served the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie), the Dutch East India Company, which had received monopoly rights from the Dutch Republic to conduct trade in Asia. Speelman worked as secretary, merchant and bookkeeper. In 1651, he travelled to Persia with an embassy from the VOC under the leadership of Joan Cunaeus. He was appointed as governor of Coromandel in 1663. Despite early disputes with the VOC about private trading, his career received a boost when he succeeded in pacifying the region of Makassar (Sulawesi) in two expeditions in 1666 and 1669. He was also successful in a military operation against the Kingdom of Mataram. In 1677, he conquered the East Javanese port of Surabaya. In 1680, he was officially appointed as Governor General of the Dutch East Indies. During his governorship, the Sultanate of Ternate in the Moluccas was subjected to Dutch authority and the English were driven away from Bantam. Speelman was seen as a skilful administrator, but he was also fond of drink and was a womanizer.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary L.P. van Putten, Ambitie en onvermogen. Gouverneurs-generaal van NederlandsIndië 1610-1796, Rotterdam, 2002 C.B. Huet, art. ‘Cornelis Speelman’, in C.B. Huet, Het land van Rembrand. Studiën over de Noordnederlandsche beschaving in de zeventiende eeuw, Haarlem, 1882-4, 350-60



cornelis speelman

365

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Journaal der reis van den gezant Joan Cunaeus naar Perzië in 1651-1652, ‘Record of the journey of the envoy Joan Cunaeus to Persia 1651-2’ Date 1652 Original Language Dutch Description The VOC had maintained a trading post in the port of Gamron ­(Bandar Abbas) on the Persian Gulf since 1623, mostly dealing in silk fabrics. In 1645, a severe disagreement arose with the Persian court, when the Dutch merchants were accused of undercutting their court-appointed middlemen. The leading merchant, Mr Constant, had also offended the Shāh by his rude behaviour. Initially, the Dutch tried to solve the conflict by a show of force, sending warships to the Persian Gulf. After an ineffectual raid on the island of Kishm (Qeshm), they initiated peace negotiations. When a first attempt failed, they sent a delegation to the Persian court, consisting of a high official of the VOC in Batavia, Joan Cunaeus, two leading merchants, Dircq Sacerius and Philip Angell (the latter was also a painter), and a minor merchant, Jan Maartense van Ham, who was the only one of the group who spoke Persian. Cornelis Speelman served as the group’s secretary. The journal consists of a description of the journey from Gamron to Isfahan by way of Shiraz (11 January-27 February 1652), the reception at the court of Shāh Abbas II, the long drawn-out negotiations about a new trading agreement, and the journey back, during which the leader of the delegation fell ill. It ends with the sea journey back to Batavia. The vivid description of the journey, covering almost 400 pages, gives the reader a glimpse of Persian culture through the eyes of an outsider. Speelman pays much attention to the hospitable reception of the delegation by Persian officials. His hosts often provide good wine from Shiraz, excellent music and ‘servants of Venus’, who dance for the company. He describes the steep mountain roads and the caravanserais, some of them quite impressive, the landscape and the irrigation works. He gives an extended description of the ruins of Persepolis, one of the first by a European traveller. In Isfahan, the travellers are received by the court after much delay. Joan Cunaeus is impatient and feels slighted, but the ‘achtuma doulet’ (iʿtimād al-dawla, a high court official) who serves as

366

cornelis speelman

their mediator, reassures him that the delay is in effect a way of honouring him. The shāh at that time was Abbas II, a young man who is described by Speelman as ‘slim, loose-limbed and beardless’. When they appear in court, the Shāh wishes to converse mostly about Dutch ships and the different qualities of arak, wine from Persia, and European wines. Significance Speelman does not pay much attention to the fact that Persia is inhabited mainly by Muslims. He does, however, describe some of the sanctuaries for the saints that they pass on their way, and he is aware of the important position of certain Sufis in court. He is most impressed by a meeting he has on the road with the Jacobite patriarch, who has travelled all the way from Aleppo without any possessions. In the capital, they are occasionally visited by the leader of the Armenian community. Armenians also serve as their interpreters at court. Their meagre success in the negotiations may, in fact, partly have to do with their poor command of the language. They are also in contact with other Europeans. There are three religious orders present in Isfahan: the Capuchins, Augustines and Carmelites. Relations with these Roman Catholics are friendly, as well as with the English merchants present (although they are also seen as rivals in trade). The trading agreement that is finally signed by Cunaeus under much pressure from the Persians (they threaten to prevent the ambassador from leaving and to arrest all Dutch traders along the cost), appears to have been disadvantageous for the Dutch. Speelman evaluates the character of the main Persian negotiator, the ‘achtuma doulet’, thus: ‘. . . but it seems that these folks very much play the Italian hypocrite, and under semblance of honest affection they so much know how to veil their evil-intentioned and false enmities, that they can do much harm . . .’ (p. 289). After reading through the detailed records of the long-winded negotiation process, the reader can only come to the conclusion that the Persian courtiers were far more skilled in diplomacy than their somewhat boorish Dutch counterparts. Publications MS The Hague, National Archives of the Netherlands – archive number 1.04.17, inventory number 876 (1652) Cornelis Janszoon Speelman, Journaal der reis van den gezant Joan Cunaeus naar Perzië in 1651-1652, ed. A. Hotz, Amsterdam, 1908



cornelis speelman

367

Studies A. Hotz, ‘Inleiding [Introduction]’, in Speelman, Journaal der reis van den gezant Joan Cunaeus, pp. i-c Gé Speelman

(Sifa) Rijali Date of Birth About 1590 Place of Birth Hitu region, on the north coast of Amboina (Ambon) Island Date of Death After 1657 Place of Death Makassar in South Sulawesi (Celebes)

Biography

Rijali was the son of Saptu and nephew of Tepil, who bore the title Kapitan Hitu, or primus inter pares among the leaders of Hitu, the confederate state formation located in Amboina (Ambon) Island. He accompanied both Tepil and his sons on diplomatic missions to representatives of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde OostIndische Compagnie), to which Hitu was allied. This alliance was based on the promise that the Dutch would assist Hitu to fight the Portuguese in return for the exclusive delivery of all of Hitu’s cloves to them. In 1605, the VOC ousted the Portuguese from the Moluccas, including Amboina. In the following decades, the Dutch and the leaders of Hitu disagreed about the price of the cloves on delivery. To guarantee their monopoly, the Dutch increasingly intervened in government affairs, especially with the death of Tepil and the succession of his son Kakiali in 1633. By that time, Rijali had risen to the position of Imam of Hitu. He took part in the fighting that broke out between the VOC and Hitu from 1639 to 1646 and, when Hitu was defeated, he fled to Makassar, where he had been head of Hitu’s second delegation to request support against the Dutch in 1639-40. Shortly after his flight in 1646, Rijali wrote the Hikayat tanah Hitu (‘History of the land of Hitu’), which treated the developments in Hitu from the beginning of the 16th century to the defeat in 1646. During the period 1653-7, he took one copy of this manuscript, written in Jawi Malay (Malay written in Arabic script), to Hoamoal on the island of Seram, just north of the already occupied Hitu, where the Makassarese were unsuccessfully fighting the Dutch. In 1657, Rijali fled for a second time to Makassar, where he must have died soon afterwards.



(sifa) rijali

369

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary H. Straver, C. van Fraassen and J. van der Putten (eds), Ridjali, Historie van Hitu. Een Ambonse geschiedenis uit de zeventiende eeuw, Utrecht, 2004, pp. 13-14 Z.J. Manusama, Historie en sociale structuur van Hitu tot het midden der zeventiende eeuw, Utrecht, 2004, pp. 65-73

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Hikayat tanah Hitu, ‘History of the land of Hitu’ Date Between 1647 and 1653 Original Language Jawi Malay Description There are two manuscripts of Hikayat tanah Hitu, the first comprising 107 pages, the second 125. After several pages that present an account of the formation of the small state of Hitu, ruled by the four leaders of the dominant immigrant clans, Rijali describes the coming of Islam. A leader of one of the four clans, a certain Patih Putih, introduced the religion after a journey to Java, possibly to Tuban, around 1525. In Java, Patih Putih had reportedly met Zainal Abidin or another representative from the Sultanate of Ternate, the dominant force to the north of Amboina Island, which from then on was a major ally of Hitu. Rijali then recounts the beginning of relations between Hitu and the Portuguese, referred to as ‘Franks’, resulting in the establishment of a Portuguese trading post on the coast of Hitu in about 1525, after the Portuguese had helped Hitu to repel raiders from Seram. Relations with the Hituese deteriorated and by about 1538 the Portuguese had moved their post to the south, to the inner bay of Amboina Island. The most important cause of this deterioration was a Portuguese punitive expedition from their fortress in Ternate to intercept junks from Java that were trading weapons for cloves in the Molucca Islands to the north. These junks had reportedly been given hospitality by the Hituese, leading the Portuguese to plunder the coast of Hitu. Soon after their move to the inner bay, the Portuguese started evangelising the villages in the southern part of Amboina Island. The difference in religion as well as the competition for cloves resulted in regular fighting between Hitu and Portugal. In order to hold their position against the ever growing Muslim

370

(sifa) rijali

forces, the Portuguese decided in 1571 to build a strong fortress in the inner bay of Amboina, at the site of the later Kota Ambon, the capital of Amboina Island. It was this Portuguese fortress that was occupied by the VOC in 1605. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch were interested in monopolising the export of cloves. After approximately two decades, fighting over the control of the supply of cloves resumed. Initially, under the rule of Tepil, Hitu was able to stay neutral, but after Tepil’s death in 1633, tensions between Hitu, headed by Kakiali, and the Dutch increased. Kakiali was arrested and held in captivity by the Dutch from 1634 to 1637. His release and restoration to his former position did not prevent the outbreak of war in 1641. During the war, Kakiali was assassinated on the orders of the VOC. In 1646, with the fall of the last Hituese stronghold of Kapahaha, the Dutch conquest of Hitu was complete. Rijali was personally involved in Hitu’s history from about the 1610s. Consequently, the last part of Hikayat tanah Hitu is a firsthand account of the events. According to Straver et al. (Historie van Hitu, pp. 71-6), Rijali wrote the Hikayat tanah Hitu from the perspective of a ‘temporary exile’. Hitu had been defeated by the Dutch, but there remained some hope of a turn for the better and some sort of restoration of Hitu according to its own ancestral traditions. Inevitably, Rijali saw relations between Muslims and Christians in a most antithetical way, as a matter of ‘believers’ versus ‘non-believers’. Significance In addition to reporting on the establishment of the state of Hitu, this work is the only known text written by a 17th-century indigenous author about the violent confrontation between the Muslim Amboinese and the Portuguese and Dutch colonial powers. Furthermore, it is an important resource for the general history of the area, which is otherwise reconstructed on the basis of a reservoir of European archival sources. For Rijali, who saw himself as a devout Muslim, the confrontation with the Portuguese was a holy war for Islam. After 1634, the argument of a battle for Islam, although with a little more caution, was also used in relation to the fight between Hitu and its allies on the one hand and the Dutch and their Christian Amboinese subjects on the other. As a pious Muslim, Rijali often saw the outcome of specific battles, as well as the overall development of the wars, as reflecting the will of God.



(sifa) rijali

371

Publications MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 5448 (the so-called original Hila MS from the 17th century – Hila is the village from which it originated; probably the one used by Rumphius and Valentijn, it is dated between 1653 and 1662 by Straver et al., Historie van Hitu, p. 19; it contains 107 pages, the first one of which is missing) MS Leiden, University Library – Cod. Or. 8756 (copy of the so-called Seit MS made by civil servant H.J. Jansen between 1919 and 1925 – Seit is the village from which it originated; according to Straver et al., Historie van Hitu, p. 22, the original Seit MS dates from the beginning of the 18th century; it contains 125 pages, the first one of which is missing, though Buijze, Lant-Beschrijving, p. 8, and Valentijn, ‘Ambonsche Zaaken’, p. 2, give descriptions of its contents) F. Valentijn, ‘Ambonsche Zaaken’, in Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, Dordrecht, 1724, vol. 2, pp. 2-14 (summary of the first part, relating the history until about 1600) Z.J. Manusama, ‘Hikayat tanah Hitu; Historie en sociale structuur van de Ambonse eilanden in het algemeen en van Uli Hitu in het bijzonder tot het midden van de zeventiende eeuw’, Leiden, 1977, (PhD Diss. University of Leiden), pp. 19-115, 156-224 (Dutch and Indonesian trans.) W. Buijze (ed.), G.E. Rumphius. De Generale Lant-Beschrijving van het Ambonse Gouvernement, The Hague, 2001, pp. 8-10, 11-16 (summary of selected pages) Straver, van Fraassen and van der Putten, Ridjali. Historie van Hitu, pp. 89-211 (modernised Indonesian and Dutch trans.) Studies Straver, Van Fraassen, and Van der Putten, Ridjali: Historie van Hitu Manusama, Historie en sociale structuur van Hitu Manusama, ‘Hikayat tanah Hitu’ Z.J. Manusama, ‘Sekelumit sejarah Tanah Hitu and Nuslaut serta struktur pemerintahnya sampai pertengahan abad ketujuhbelas’, in P.R. Abdurrachman, R.Z. Leirissa and C.P.F. Luhulima (eds), Bunga rampai sejarah Maluku, Jakarta, 1973, 11-44 Gerrit Knaap

Livinus Bor Date of Birth About 1621 Place of Birth Leiden Date of Death 5 January 1669 Place of Death Ambon

Biography

Little is known about the childhood and early career of Livinus Bor. He entered the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1639 as a naval cadet and worked in modest positions in Ternate after arriving in the Indies. In 1650, he became the secretary to Arnold de Vlaming van Oudshoorn, superintendent for the three governors in East Indonesia: Banda, Ambon and Ternate. He joined his superior when, in early 1652, the sultan of Ternate was brought to Batavia to sign a treaty in which he recognised Dutch authority over the Muslim region of the island of Ambon (Hitu) and over southeast Seram (Hoamoal), together with the general Dutch monopoly in the growth and trade of cloves. Bor also took part in the hard-fought wars involving de Vlaming in Hoamoal, in which the local rulers, together with supporting troops from the sultan of Makassar, were finally beaten and the peninsula declared forbidden territory for all people (to become ‘a bare desert’). In 1656, he wrote an account of the wars that took place in 1650-6. Then in 1661, he was sent by the VOC to Formosa/Taiwan. Returning to Batavia, he moved to Ambon in 1663 and he died there in 1669. He was married to Cecilia Suarez van Bengalen, probably a Eurasian, though the marriage was not happy. His wife was imprisoned in Batavia for meting out harsh treatment to a slave and did not join him in Ambon afterwards. Livinus Bor is praised as ‘the only Dutch historian of the Indies, living in the country itself’ (Bartelds, ‘Livinus Bor’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary G.J. Knaap, Kruidnagelen en Christenen. De Verenigde Oost-Indische Copagnie en de bevolking van Ambon 1656-1696, Dordrecht, 1987 (repr. Leiden, 2004) H.J. de Graaf, De geschiedenis van Ambon en de Zuid-Molukken, Franeker, 1977, pp. 108-29



livinus bor

373

J.C.E. Bartelds, art. ‘Livinus Bor’, in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, Leiden, 1930, vol. 8, pp. 180-1

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn, ‘The Ambonese wars of Arnold de Vlaming van Ourhoorn’ Date 1663 Original Language Dutch Description Livinus Bor’s book on the Ambonese wars (its full title is Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn als superintendent over d’oosterse gewesten oorlogaftig ten eind gebracht, ‘The Ambonese wars waged in a violent manner by Arnold de Vlaming van Ourhoorn as superintendent of the eastern districts’), printed in small type and consisting of xxxix + 369 pages, is written as a tribute to Arnold de Vlaming, the superintendent for East Indonesia between 1650 and 1656. The violent actions of these wars created a monopoly on cloves for the VOC by wiping out all the clove trees in Ternate, Seram and other areas of the region outside Ambon. Besides the sultan of Ternate, there were Muslim rulers in Southeast Seram (Hoamoal), in north Ambon (Hitu), in the sultanate of Buton and the most powerful, the sultan of Makassar, while the town of Ambon and its surroundings was a predominantly Christian territory. Muslims are most often described with the common qualifications of meinédig, licht­ vaerdig en ontrou (‘not keeping their oaths, easily changing their minds and untruthful’, p. vii). Further characteristics attributed to them are that they easily seek conflict, and show respect outwardly but do not keep their promises. But there are also ‘good Muslims’ who are exceptions to this general rule of an otherwise ‘wicked race’. One prominent example is the Sultan of Buton, depicted as a noble ruler (pp. 15-16), who, against the wish of his advisers and entourage, did not attack and ransom a Dutch ship that was stranded, but effectively helped the crew. Later, he also freely entered a visiting Dutch ship to enter into negotiations. On his many trips through the region, de Vlaming always paid a visit to Buton to see the ruler. However, in 1654 things had changed altogether (pp. 254-7). The power of the sultan of Makassar had grown, and this

374

livinus bor

brought an end to the friendly relationship between the sultan of Buton and the Dutch. Moreover, the sultan of Buton had frequently taken with him as concubines on his trips the wives of his high officials at home. His entourage finally revolted against him because of this and killed him. Otherwise he had, according to Bor, a ‘friendly character’ (goedaertigen inborst), but in the end his sexual predations were fatal. Another ‘friendly Muslim’ for de Vlaming was the famous and legendary Karaeng Pattinngaloang of Makassar (c. 1600-17 September 1654), who is described as ‘First in the realm after the King. The man who has authority in all matters. A wise prince and much wiser than could expected of a Muslim. He speaks Latin, Italian, Portuguese, and understands many Greek words, has read widely in European texts, and is able to apply it to modern conditions’ (pp. 63-4). He had ordered a huge globe of the world (with a 4-metre diameter) from the VOC, for which he paid 12,000 Dutch guilders. His death is mentioned with some regret, but also with hope for a better future ‘because he was the driving force behind the Makassarese expansion in the eastern regions’ (p. 247). Among the majority of Muslims in Hoamoal and Hitu, there is always a ‘faction that is positive towards the Dutch’. And so there are always some benevolent Muslims among those to whom the general negative qualifications apply. Among the Christians, there were also political opponents (and religious renegades – the connection was easily made). One famous case was that of Ioan Pays, judge in the village of Hative. He had joined the Muslim rebellion, was taken captive and was sentenced to death. When he was asked why he had joined the Muslim party, although born a Christian, he is reported to have said: Het Kristen geloof . . . is voor my maer een uiterliken schijn, want ik Moors van inborst ben (‘Christianity is only an outward appearance for me . . . because my soul is Muslim’). Bor shows that being a Christian or Muslim always has political consequences. He made a strong plea in favour of the war against those who did not respect the Dutch monopoly on cloves (pp. 50-62). Although he often mentions that Muslims could be loyal to the Dutch Christians, he sometimes also adds that Muslims ‘in order to be completely trusted’ also should receive a decent monthly financial allowance (cf. p. 219 on the Captain of Hitu). The Hoamoal imam Abd al-Rahman is given as an example of a man ‘who never was forbidden to give his sermons’ and had full freedom of religion under Dutch rule; this Muslim leader lost his life as a result of his loyalty to the Dutch.



livinus bor

375

Significance Livinus Bor was the first to praise the violent methods of the Dutch in the Moluccas as they established their monopoly in spices by excluding Muslim inhabitants and seeking support from the Christians. A younger contemporary of Bor and de Vlaming, the biologist G.E. Rumphius (in a book completed in 1678, but first published by Buijze in 2001), repeats the term ‘bare desert’ for the Muslim-dominated southwestern peninsula of Seram, and compares de Vlaming’s strategy with that of a physician curing a persistent wound: ‘He had to cut off some limbs in their entirety. This was done by Seigneur Arnold de Vlaming’ (Rumphius, Generale Lantbeschrijvinge, The Hague, 2001, p. 67). Bor is sometimes even compared to the great historian P.C. Hooft, the ‘Dutch Tacitus’ (F. de Haan, Oud Batavia, Batavia, 1922, vol. 1, p. 294; Bartelds, ‘Livinus Bor’, p. 181). But others (Polman, Central Moluccas, p. 21) blame Bor for a one-sided perspective on the brutal and harsh de Vlaming and his lack of understanding of the Muslim population. W.P. Coolhaas calls Amboinse oorlogen ‘a work in which the behaviour of the Dutch was glorified in a pompous, quasi-Tacitean style’ (A critical survey of studies on Dutch colonial history, The Hague, 19802, p. 46). Publications Livinus Bor, Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn als superintendent over d’oosterse gewesten oorlogaftig ten eind gebracht, Delft, 1663 Studies E.M. Beekman, Paradijzen van weleer. Koloniale literatuur uit Nederlands-Indië 1600-1950, Amsterdam, 1998 (English version: Troubled pleasures. Dutch colonial literature from the Dutch East Indies, 1600-1950, Oxford, 1996) A. Birney, 400 Jaar Indië in de Nederlandse letteren, Amsterdam, 1998 K. Polman, The central Moluccas. An annotated bibliography, Dordrecht, 1983 L.Y. Andaya, The heritage of Arung Palakka. A history of south Sulawesi (Celebes) in the seventeenth century, The Hague, 1981 R. Nieuwenhuys, Oost-Indische Spiegel, Amsterdam, 1972 E. du Perron, De muze van Jan Companjie, Bandung, 1948 Bartelds, ‘Livinus Bor’ F. de Haan, Oud Batavia, Batavia [ Jakarta], 1922, vol. 1

376

livinus bor

J. van den Vondel, Dichtwerken en oorspronkelijke Prozaschriften in verband met eenige Levensbijzonderheden, bewerkt door Dr. J.A. Alberdink Thijm & J.H.W. Unger, Leiden, 1895, vol. 6 Karel Steenbrink

Johann Adam Schall Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Adam Schall, Adamus Schall, Jean Adam Schall, John Adams, Tang Ruowang Date of Birth 1592 Place of Birth Cologne Date of Death 1666 Place of Death Beijing

Biography

Johann Adam Schall was born in Cologne and entered the Society of Jesus in 1611, studying for ordination at the Roman College. Ordained in 1618, he went to Macau the following year. By 1623, Schall had moved to Beijing, where he began work on reforming the Chinese calendar. He subsequently spent several years in Xian. In 1630, he returned to Beijing in order to undertake further astronomical and mathematical work, following the imperial endorsement of European methodologies. After the fall of the Ming dynasty, Schall became close to the newly established Qing Shunzhi Emperor (1638-61) and was treated with unusual levels of respect by his new superior. Proving the efficacy of European science to the Qing leadership, he was made the director of the Imperial Observatory and charged with creating a new calendar. Under the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661-1722), whose power was weak at the beginning of his rule, Schall’s position was undermined by the challenges of Yang Guangxian and Muslims (principally Wu Mingxuan) from the Muslim Astronomical Bureau. As a result of charges brought against them in 1664, Schall and a number of Chinese-Christian members of the Imperial Observatory were put on trial, during which Schall suffered a stroke and had to be represented by Ferdinand Verbiest. In 1665, all were condemned to death, but one month later it was decided that Schall and three others were to be given reduced sentences. Schall was eventually pardoned and kept under house arrest in Beijing alongside Verbiest, Lodovico Buglio and Gabriel de Magalhaes. All other Jesuits were exiled to Canton, and five Chinese-Christian astronomers were executed. Schall died the following year. Following the eventual success of the Jesuits during the astronomical controversy, he had his titles and ranks restored posthumously.

378

johann adam schall

Despite the prominent place of Muslims in the later part of his life, before and during the astronomical controversy, as well as in Xian, where there was a Muslim population, Schall’s work is relatively lacking in references to Muslims or Islam. His 1665 Historica narratio de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses makes only a brief reference to the reaction of Muslim scholars and their envy following the inclusion of the Jesuits in, and the inception of changes to, the calendrical system (pp. 26-7). He also notes their use of fraud, deception and violence against the Jesuits.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Historica narratio de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses, ac praesertim in Regia Pequinensi, Vienna: Cosmerovius, 1665 Secondary C. Jami, The Emperor’s new mathematics. Western learning and imperial authority during the Kangxi reign (1662-1722), Oxford, 2012 D.E. Mungello, The great encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, Lanham MD, 2009 B.A. Elman, On their own terms. Science in China, 1550-1900, Cambridge MA, 2005 C. Jami, P. Engelfriet and G. Blue (eds), Statecraft and intellectual renewal in late Ming China. The cross-cultural synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), Leiden, 2001 R. Malek (ed.), Western learning and Christianity in China. The contribution and impact of Adam Schall von Bell, S.J. (1592-1666), Sankt Augustin, 1998 J.W. Witek, art. ‘Johann Adam Schall von Bell, 1592-1666’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Grand Rapids MI, 1998; http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/s/schall-von-bell-johann-adam.php Chu Pingyi, ‘Scientific dispute in the imperial court. The 1664 calendar case’, Chinese Science 14 (1997) 7-34 A.C. Ross, A vision betrayed. The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742, Maryknoll NY, 1994 Zhu Weizheng, Coming out of the Middle Ages. Comparative reflections on China and the West, trans. R. Hayhoe, New York, 1990 R. Attwater, Adam Schall. A Jesuit at the court of China, 1592-1666, Milwaukee WI, 1963 L. Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jesuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552-1773, Shanghai, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 162-70



johann adam schall

379

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Historica narratio, de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses, ac praesertim in Regia Pequinensi, ‘Historical narration of the beginning and progress of the missions of the Society of Jesus among the Chinese, and especially at the royal court of Peking’ Date 1665 Original Language Latin Description In this historical work, the passages dealing with opposition to the Jesuit involvement in astronomy tend to take a more general approach to opponents rather than singling out the Muslims as adversaries. Therefore, whilst it is anti-Muslim in approach, this has less to do with religious identity (although conceptions of identity doubtlessly affected the composition) than with opposition per se to the Jesuits. This was probably also linked to the fact that the Jesuits had both Muslim and non-Muslim Chinese adversaries. Explicit references to Muslims are therefore sparse. The first half of the text deals with the trials and contests between Schall and his opponents. Within this section, Schall recounts a short episode that refers to the reprimanding of the Muslim scholars (Vienna 1665, pp. 45-6). The remainder of the book focuses on a discussion of the Jesuit victory and Schall’s desired consequences. In the chapter Ultimus pro instaurata astronomia conflictus, et ex illo victoria Europeai, Schall opens by noting that the Muslim scholars had no place within the new astronomical system, and that they were bitter enemies of the Europeans (p. 213). Elsewhere he notes that the Muslim scholars were untrained and inexperienced (p. 218). Whilst this statement is little more than a description, he later refers to the ‘useless methodology’ of the Muslims in derogatory terms, noting its inefficacy (p. 221). All the text, which is 267 pages long, is primarily a descriptive history in which Muslims play only a small part. References to Muslims generally lack an overt value judgement and, when they are anti-Muslim in nature, this appears to have less to do with Schall’s opponents’ religious identity than with their anti-Jesuit position. The text also acts as an apology, being an

380

johann adam schall

attempt to defend Schall’s decision to take control of the Imperial Observatory and defend his involvement in science. The text was redacted by the Austrian Jesuit Johan Foresi (1624-82) and is based on reports from 1658 to 1661. Significance Generally, Schall uses words to refer to Muslims derived from the Latin term Mahometanus. However, what is perhaps most pertinent is that most of the time rival astronomers are not delineated by their religious belief or identity. The text records the issues faced by Schall and the other Jesuits at the hands of their opponents in the Chinese administration and astronomical boards. Most of the time, it is sufficient for Schall to distinguish only between Europeans and Others (Chinese, Manchus and Muslims). The text generally serves to edify the Jesuit astronomical successes for a European readership and defend Schall’s position and involvement within the field. Publications Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Historica narratio, de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses, ac praesertim in regia Pequinensi, Vienna: Cosmerovius, 1665 Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Historica relatio de ortu et progressu fidei orthodoxae in regno chinensi per missionaries Societatis Jesu ab anno 1581. Usque ad annum 1669, Ratisbonae: Joan Conrad Emmrich, 1672 Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Geschichte der chinesischen Mission. Aus dem Latenischen von Ig. Sch. von Mannsegg, ed. I. Schumann von Mannsegg, Vienna, 1834 (German trans.) Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Relation historique, ed. H. BernardMaitre, Tientsin, 1942 (French trans.) Digitalised versions of the 1665 and 1672 editions, together with the German trans., are available through the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: http://www.univie.ac.at/Geschichte/China-Bibliographie/blog/ 2012/02/23/schall-von-bell-historica-narratio-de-initio-et-progressumissionis/ Studies G. Wiessala, European studies in Asia. Contours of a discipline, London, 2014 F.C. Hsia, Sojourners in a strange land. Jesuits and their scientific missions in late Imperial China, Chicago IL, 2009



johann adam schall

381

N. Standaert, The interweaving of rituals. Funerals in the cultural exchange between China and Europe, Seattle WA, 2008, p. 39 Malek, Western learning and Christianity in China James Harry Morris

Yang Guangxian Yang Kuang-hsien, Yangquangsenius Date of Birth 1597 Place of Birth Anhui Date of Death 1669 Place of Death En route to Anhui

Biography

Yang Guangxian was a Chinese Muslim who made a career out of fraudulent and slanderous claims aimed at increasing his social standing. In particular, his challenges to the Jesuit astronomical system eventually led to his becoming an astronomer and head of the Imperial Observatory. However, during a period of exile he learned about astrology, and upon his return used this skillset to publish, in 1659, his first work on Western astronomy. Within this and other works, he argued against the use of Western mathematical calendrical models, and eventually came to write against the Christian religion more generally.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary D.E. Mungello, The great encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, Lanham MA, 2009 B.A. Elman, On their own terms. Science in China, 1550-1900, Cambridge MA, 2005 M. Klaue, ‘Wider das Budeyi gelevgen oder scheitern einer ChristlichKonfuzianischen synthese in der apologetischen schrift Budeyi Bian (1665) des Jesuiten Ludovico Buglio’, Monumenta Serica 45 (1997) 101-259 Chu Pingyi, ‘Scientific dispute in the imperial court. The 1664 calendar case’, Chinese Science 14 (1997) 7-34 Zhu Weizheng, Coming out of the Middle Ages. Comparative reflections on China and the West, trans. R. Hayhoe, New York, 1990 Ruan Yuan, Shilin Luo and Kebao Zhu (eds), Chouren zhuan, Shanghai, 1955 Huang Yilong, ‘Yang Guangxian jiashi yu shengping kao’, Guoli bianyiguan guankan 19/2 (1900) 15-28



yang guangxian

383

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Pi xie lun, ‘On exposing heterodoxy’ ‘On refuting heresy’ Date 1659 Original Language Chinese Description Published in three parts, Pi xie lun is primarily concerned with exposing the faults of Christianity. It opens with a challenge to the elevation by the Chinese of the Jesuit missionaries as saints or holy men, and contests the concept that these people and their teachings are complicated to understand. On the contrary, Yang asserts that the Jesuits (described here using the term Sheng ren) and their teachings are easily understood, and it is only due to their exoticness and foreign appeal that they are elevated in the minds of the Chinese. The text contains criticisms of prominent Jesuits such as Johann Adam Schall and Giacomo Rho (Chinese: Luo Jianshao/Luo Yagu, 1593-1638), but generally targets Christianity as a whole rather than focusing on individuals. The text occupies 31 pages (pp. 1103-34) in Wu Xiangxiang’s 1966 edition of Bu de yi. The text also includes passages stylised as conversations, following an approximate pattern of question and answer sessions between a priest and his potential converts. These are similar to contemporaneous Christian catechisms used in the East Asian mission field and illustrate good knowledge of basic Christian doctrine on the part of Yang. Following such passages in which the basics of the religion are outlined, Yang proceeds to ridicule and criticise Christian truth claims. Yang rejects the claim that Christ is the creator of heaven, and denies the existence of the Christian God, instead affirming the Confucian principals of yin and yang. The text is polemical, taking a staunchly anti-Christian stance. Terminologically, Christianity is referred to as Tian zhu jiao, the standard contemporary term used by Christians and Chinese alike. Other terminology, such as Sheng ren (holy person/saint) and Xi yang ren (Westerner), lack negative connotations. The term Pi xie (heresy/heterodoxy), which features in the text and its title, has a polemical connotation. There are no early copies of the text outside Yang’s Bu de yi (1665) and Ju xi ji (1663). Significance Pi xie lun is written in the genre of anti-Christian polemic with some short sections more properly defined within the genre of Muslim science.

384

yang guangxian

Whilst it features descriptive elements about the nature of Christianity, this is a literary device used to illustrate the shortcomings of the religion through the addition of commentary and value judgment. The text was instrumental in the build-up to the Jesuit-Muslim controversies of the 1660s, and its inclusion in Bu de yi, Ju xi ji and later anti-Christian literature illustrates its ongoing importance. Nevertheless, it lacked significant influence over mainstream opinion until the charges made by Yang, Wu Mingxuan and others in the mid-1660s and associated political struggles. It is the 33 statements found in Pi xie lun that Lodovico Buglio criticises in his Bu de yi bian. Publications Yang Guangxian, Pi xie lun, 1659 (reprinted as part of Bu de yi in Wu Xiangxiang (ed.), Tian zhu jiao dong chuan wenxian xu bian, Taibei: Xuesheng shuju, 1966, pp. 1103-34 – Pi xie lun is the first chapter in Ju xi ji, on which see below); WDL 7090 (digitalised version available through World Digital Library/ Library of Congress) Studies A. Chan, Chinese books and documents from the Jesuit Archives in Rome. A descriptive catalogue, London, 20152, pp. 143-4 Zhuo Xinping, Christianity, trans. Chi Zhen and Caroline Mason, Leiden, 2013, pp. 328-9 Elman, On their own terms Klaue, ‘Wider das Budeyi gelevgen oder scheitern einer ChristlichKonfuzianischen synthese in der apologetischen schrift Budeyi Bian’

Zheng guo ti cheng gao, ‘A call to rectify the country’ ‘A plea to rectify the country’ Date 1660 Original Language Chinese Description In this work, Yang directly attacks Jesuit astronomers by arguing that the acceptance of Western calendrical models and Christianity places power in the hands of the Europeans, thereby weakening Qing dynasty rule. The text was presented to the Ministry of Rites as a plea against



yang guangxian

385

Christianity and Christian involvement in Chinese astronomy, and was published the year following the closure of the Muslim Astronomical Bureau. The text was included in Yang Guangxian’s compilations Ju xi ji and Bu de yi, and can be categorised as anti-Christian and polemical in genre. The text occupies 22 pages in Wu Xiangxiang’s edited edition of Bu de yi (pp. 1143-55). Significance The inclusion of the text in both Ju xi ji, Bu de yi and later anti-Christian publications illustrates its ongoing importance, although as a plea made directly to the Ministry of Rites it was rejected, and therefore did not have a lasting effect. Following its publication, Yang’s writing subsided somewhat between 1660 and 1664, although texts such as Nie jing and Ju xi ji were still published. It was not until 1664, when the ChineseChristian astronomer Li Zubai published his Tian xue chuan gai, which argues amongst other things that the Chinese were descendants of Adam and Eve and that Christians had come to China earlier, that Yang’s arguments began to gain greater popularity. Publications Yang Guangxian, Zheng guo ti cheng gao, 1660 (contained in Bu de yi, 1665, pp. 1143-55) Wu Xiangxiang (ed.) Tian zhu jiao dong chuan wen xian xu bian, Taibei: Xuesheng shuju, 1966, pp. 1143-55

Ju xi ji, ‘Reject the West. A collection’ ‘Apart from the West’ ‘Separate from the West’ Date 1663 Original Language Chinese Description Ju xi ji is a recently discovered collection of eight texts, six of which feature in Bu de yi. These include Pi xie lun, an imperial edict from 1660, Zhe miu lun, Zheng guo ti cheng gao, Nie jing, Jing yu, Xuan ze yi, and a further imperial edict from 1661. The edicts are the two texts that do not feature in Bu de yi. Since Nie jing was written in 1662 and Yang writes of Ju xi ji in 1664, scholars have dated the work to approximately 1663. The

386

yang guangxian

contents shared with Bu de yi will be discussed below, here it is worth noting that all are anti-Christian and polemical in nature dealing with either Christian truth claims themselves or with Western (and therefore Jesuit) astronomy. Significance The fact that this text is a recent discovery, suggesting that few copies have survived, indicates that it was not of great significance following its composition. The likely reason for this is that the publication of the comparatively expanded Bu de yi reduced the value of this earlier collection. Furthermore, at the time of writing Yang had not yet ascended to his later position of power. Despite all this, as the first collection of Yang’s works, it is important as a precursor to Bu de yi. Publications Yang Guangxian, Ju xi ji, 1663 (one copy at the National Central Library of Taipei); A. Dudink and N. Standaert, Chinese Christian texts database (CCT-Database), http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/sinologie/ english/cct Studies Huang Yilong, ‘Yang Guangxian zhu shu lun lue’, Shu mu ji kan 23/4 (1900) 5-6

Bu de yi, ‘I cannot do otherwise’ ‘I could not do otherwise’ ‘I no longer support it’ ‘I can no longer stand it’ Date 1665 Original Language Chinese Description Following Li Zubai’s publication of Tian xue chuan gai (1664), Yang quickly issued a response. Throughout 1664 and 1665 he published a string of works, which were collected in Bu de yi (1665). This is in two volumes and was printed by the publisher Siqueshanfang. It contains works of a number of genres, including letters, treatises, petitions and rebuttals. The first volume contains 60 folios, one for the introduction, and 59 for the main text. Each half folio is divided into nine columns with 20 characters



yang guangxian

387

in each. The beginning of the volume contains the text Qing zhu xie jiao zhuang, which was the first petition made by Yang to be accepted by the Ministry of Rites (in 1664). The second work is a letter from the author to the censor Xu Qingyu (Xu Zhijan) from 1664 which includes a reference to Ju xi ji (allowing scholars more accurately to date that text). It attacks Li Zubai’s Tian xue chuan gai for which the very same Xu Qingyu had composed a preface. Thereafter is Pi xie lun, followed by images taken from Johann Adam Schall’s Jin cheng shu xiang, and this is then followed by Zheng guo ti cheng gao, Xuan ze yi and Zhe miulun. Other works are also included. The second volume, which appears to be 53 folios in length, includes Nie jing, Jing yu, and a series of other works. These works can be divided into two interrelated themes: attacks on Western science (e.g. Nie jing, Zhe miulin) which will therefore not be dealt with here, and attacks on Christianity. To some extent these themes cannot be clearly separated, because, for example, works such as Zheng guo ti cheng gao contained criticisms of both calendrical and astronomical methodology as well as criticisms of Christianity. Given the extensive nature of the collection, it is difficult to offer comments on every aspect, although a brief overview of some of the arguments in it may be given. The work begins by attacking Li Zubai’s claim that the Chinese were descended from Adam and Eve. For Yang, such an assertion implies that Chinese knowledge is but a remnant of some forgotten Judeo-Christian heterodoxy. Moreover, Zubai’s claims, he argues, aim to incite rebellion. It is pertinent to note that, despite being a Muslim, Yang criticises Christianity from a Confucian standpoint. He notes that, in rebelling against his country, Christ disregarded the Confucian relationship of ruler-subject, and that, in rejecting ancestor worship, Christians refuse to recognise the relationship of parent and child. Prominent within the collection is the petition to the Ministry of Rites, Qing zhu xie jiao zhuang, which argues that Schall and the Jesuits were guilty of three major sins: inciting rebellion, confusing the population over religious matters and identity, and the incorrect calculation of the calendar. On the last front, Yang strove to show that Schall’s calendrical calculations had led to the death of a prominent imperial consort by selecting a bad day (astrologically) for the burial of her son. This confirmed a prediction he made in his 1659 Xuan ze yi, which is also included in the collection. The work is anti-Christian and generally polemical, although the range of genres and texts within it means that its nature varies.

388

yang guangxian

Significance Bu de yi stands out as Yang’s most prominent contribution. It was the object of a number of Jesuit rebuttals such as Lodovico Buglio’s Bu de yi bian and Verbiest’s book of the same name, and it has experienced great longevity, being republished in anti-Christian works until the modern period. Yang’s focus on Confucian rather than Muslim thought is probably one aspect that has given the text this longevity, and contemporaneously its popularity (it must be remembered that Muslims were a minority of the population). However, this is probably also linked to the fact that Yang’s polemic attacked Christianity from several standpoints; for example, not only was Christianity politically dangerous, but it was also theologically incorrect, and scientifically inaccurate. Such is the stature of this text that many no longer treat it as a compilation of separate texts, but as a composition in its own right, with all its contents referred to by the one title Bu de yi. In its immediate setting, it contributed greatly to the persecution and exile of the Jesuits and the re-creation of the Muslim Astronomical Bureau. Even after the persecution had ended, it continued to influence popular opinion. Publications For details of MSS of the work in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Bibliothèque interuniversitaire des langues orientales, Paris, and Fujen University, see A. Dudink and N. Standaert, Chinese Christian texts database (CCT-Database), http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/sinologie/ english/cct Yang Guangxian, Bu de yi, 1665 (a 1846 reprint is available in Wu Xiangxiang (ed.), Tian zhu jiao dong chuan we nxian xu bian, Taibei: Xue sheng shu ju, 1966, vol. 3, pp. 1069-332) Ya Pamphlet Collection, Death blow to corrupt doctrines. A plain statement of facts, Shanghai, 1870, pp. 37-49 (available from Internet Archive) Zhou Erfang, Ming mo Qing chu Tian zhu jiao shi wen xian cong bian, Beijing: Beijing tu shu guan chu ban she, 2001, pp. 287-350 D. Mungello and J.D. Young (eds and trans), ‘Yang Guangxian’s critique of Christianity’, in W.T. de Bary (ed.), Sources of East Asian tradition, New York, 2008, vol. 2, 71-4 Zhou Yan (Zhou Erfang), Ming mo Qing chu Tian zhu jiao shi zi liao xin bian, Beijing: Guo jia tu shu guan chu ban she, 2013, vol. 3, pp. 2041-167



yang guangxian

389

Studies Chan, Chinese books and documents, pp. 142-4 Chu Pingyi, ‘Numerology and calendrical learning. The stories of Yang Guangxian and Liu Xiangkui’, The Korean Journal for the History of Science 37 (2015) 479-97 C. Jami, ‘Revisiting the Calendar case (1664-1669). Science, religion and politics in early Qing Beijing’, The Korean Journal for the History of Science 37 (2015) 459-77 Qiong Zhang, Making the new world their own. Chinese encounters with Jesuit science in the age of discovery, Leiden, 2015 C. Jami, The emperor’s new mathematics. Western learning and imperial authority during the Kangxi reign (1662-1722), Oxford, 2012 Elman, On their own terms C. Jami, P. Engelfriet and G. Blue (eds), Statecraft and intellectual renewal in late Ming China. The cross-cultural synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), Leiden, 2001 R. Malek (ed.), Western learning and Christianity in China. The contribution and impact of Johann Adam Schall von Bell, S.J. (1592-1666), Sankt Augustin, 1998 Chu Pingyi, ‘Scientific dispute in the imperial court’ Klaue, ‘Wider das Budeyi gelevgen oder scheitern einer ChristlichKonfuzianischen synthese in der apologetischen schrift Budeyi Bian’ A. Udias, ‘Jesuit astronomers in Beijing, 1601-1805’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 35 (1994) 463-78 Zhu Weizheng, Coming out of the Middle Ages James Harry Morris

Francisco Combes Juan Francisco Combes Torralba Date of Birth 5 October 1620 Place of Birth Zaragoza, Spain Date of Death 29 December 1665 Place of Death Acapulco, Mexico

Biography

Francisco Combes was born in Zaragoza, and was educated from 1633 by the Jesuits in Tarragona. He spent several years in New Spain before embarking for Manila in 1643. He was ordained a priest in San Pedro Makati, and was sent to Zamboanga in 1645. He was involved in various roles in the evangelisation of Mindanao until 1655, when he began teaching theology at the University of Manila. When the Chinese pirate Koxinga threatened the islands in 1662, Combes argued for the need to keep Zamboanga Fort, going against the view of Governor General Manrique de Lara. He was commissioned by the Jesuits to move to Rome but died on the way to Acapulco.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Sermón predicado al Arcángel S. Miguel en la Santa Iglesia metropolitana de Manila, Patente el Santísimo Sacramento, y descubierta la milagrosa Imagen de N. Señora de Guía, en el Octavario festivo, que celebró el señor D. Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, del Ábito de Calatrava, del Consejo de su Magestad, su Governador, Presidente y Capitán General entonçes de estas Islas, eligiéndole Patrón para defensa de ellas contra las sobervias amenazas del tirano China, por el P. Francisco Combes, Religioso de la Conpañía de Jesús, Lector de Prima en su Collejio, y Universidad de a Ciudad de Manila; Sacole a luz el General Don Felipe de Vgalde, &c., Manila, 1664 Pedro Ribadeneira and Philippe Alegambe, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Iesu, Rome, 1676, pp. 220-1 Francisco Combes, Historia de Mindanao y Joló por el P. Francisco Combes de la Compañía de Jesús, obra publicada en Madrid en 1667, ed. P. Pastells, Madrid, 1897



francisco combes

391

Secondary A.M. Rodríguez Rodríguez, ‘La representación de las relaciones hispano-musulmanas en tres obras del siglo XVII. Topographia e historia general de Argel, Cautiverio y Trabajos de Diego Galán e historia de Mindanao y Joló’, Madison, 2007 (Diss. University of Wisconsin-Madison), pp. 210-316 J.S. Cummins and N.P. Cushner, ‘Labor in the colonial Philippines: The Discurso parenético of Gómez de Espinosa’, Philippine Studies 22 (1974) 117-203

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Historia de Mindanao y Joló, ‘History of Mindanao and Jolo’ Date 1667 Original Language Spanish Description Historia de Mindanao y Joló (also known as Historia de las Islas de Mindanao, Ioló y svs Adyacentes. Progressos de la religión, y armas católicas, ‘History of Mindanao, Sulu and adjacent regions. Progress of the religion and Catholic power’) is the first comprehensive history of the region that presents it as a geographical unity. Comprising 567 pages in the 1667 edition, it was written with the main goal of identifying the relevance of the region for the Spanish administration and to argue against the abandonment of the fort of Zamboanga. The work is divided into eight books, covering topics from natural history to evangelisation and political developments up to the withdrawal from Zamboanga. Offering a first-hand account of key episodes in Muslim-Christian relations in the Philippine Archipelago and dealing with the conquest of Mindanao and Sulu by Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera and the rise of Kudarat, the information provided by this work is often unique. Combes displays admiration for the richness of Mindanao and Sulu and argues for the need to keep the Spanish presence to balance the inter-ethnic conflicts. The style is compelling and the work represents a major piece of European historiography on Asia. Significance Combes was a Jesuit preaching in the southern regions of the Philippines in the mid-17th century. He interacted with several ethnic groups, compiling oral testimonies and traditions. Moreover, he was a direct witness to and participant in the dramatic events that took place in this period: the advent of Sultan Kudarat and the civil war with Buhayen, and the

392

francisco combes

campaigns of Hurtado de Corcuera. Combes insightfully presents a complex political and cultural environment. Combes’ work is a main reference for the history of Mindanao and Sulu; in the 20th century, César Adib Majul used it to reconstruct the genealogy of the sultanates. This is one of the most important Spanish sources dealing with Islam in the Philippines and provides exceptional insights into many topics, especially the social organisation and political alliances of southern Philippine tribes. Combes argues that tribal divisions led to the coming of the Spaniards being used by some tribes as a reason to disrupt the political balance. He also highlights the origins of Sulu from the Kingdom of Butuan. This document is invaluable because of the author’s perceptive knowledge of the region and the people, illustrating clear anthropological and societal structures that reflect the complexity of the southern Philippines. Publications Francisco Combes, Historia de las Islas de Mindanao, Ioló y svs Adyacentes. Progressos de la religión, y armas católicas, Madrid: Herederos de Pablo de Val, 1667; Vienna 65.D.26 (digitalised version available through the Austrian National Library) P. Pastells (ed.), Historia de Mindanao y Joló por el P. Francisco Combes de la Compañía de Jesús, obra publicada en Madrid en 1667, Madrid, 1897, repr. Charleston SC, 2015 Studies I. Donoso, ‘El islam en Filipinas’, Alicante, 2011 (Diss. University of Alicante), pp. 581-9 Rodríguez Rodríguez, ‘La representación de las relaciones hispanomusulmanas’ C.A. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, Quezon City, 1973 Isaac Donoso

Lodovico Buglio Lodovico Buglio, Li Leisi, Louis Buglio Date of Birth 26 January 1606 Place of Birth Mineo, Sicily Date of Death 7 October 1682 Place of Death Beijing

Biography

Lodovico Buglio was a Sicilian Jesuit (born in Mineo, Sicily) and one of four who remained captive in Beijing following the exile of the Jesuits from the country. In Chinese he is known as Li Leisi. In 1622, he joined the Society of Jesus, working at the Roman College (Collegio Romano) before leaving for China in 1634. He arrived in Macau in 1636 and undertook missionary work in Fujian and Jiangxi. He was joined by Gabriel de Magalhaes (1610-77) in 1642 and began work in Sichuan. The area was captured by the rebel Zhang Xianzhong in 1644, and Buglio and Magalhaes were made the astronomers of his court. Zhang was defeated by the Manchus in 1647 and the two Jesuits were captured and sent for imprisonment to Beijing. They were released after four years, and built a church (called the Dongtang or East Church) with an imperial mandate. Thereafter, he assisted Johann Adam Schall, Ferdinand Verbiest and Magalhaes in their astronomical and calendrical work. Buglio played a prominent role during the anti-Jesuit persecutions and associated astronomical controversies of the late 1660s. He wrote and translated in excess of 30 texts, including Chinese translations of parts of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, and the Roman Missal, Breviary and Ritual. Prominent amongst his works for this entry are his 1665 Bu de yi bian, his Tian zhu jiao yuan you published the same year, and his 1668 Zhu jiao yao zhi, which all sought to defend Christianity against claims made by its opponents. He died in Beijing in 1662 and was given a state funeral.

394

lodovico buglio

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary L.M. Paternico, The generation of giants 2. Other champions of cultural dialogue between Europe and China, Trento, 2015, pp. 35-40 J. Sebes, art. ‘Buglio. Ludovico’, in C.E. O’Neill and J.M. Domínguez (eds), Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús. Biográfico-temático, Madrid, 2001, vol. 1, p. 568 J.W. Witek, art. ‘Lodovico Buglio, 1606-1682’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Grand Rapids MI, 1998; http://www. bdcconline.net/en/stories/b/buglio-lodovico.php G. Bertuccioli, ‘Ludovico Buglio’, in A. Luini (ed.), Scienziati siciliani gesuiti in Cina nel secolo XVII, Milan, 1985, 121-46 L. Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jesuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552-1773, Shanghai, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 230-43 J.M. Woods, art. ‘Louis Buglio’, in C.G. Herbermann et al. (eds), Catholic encyclopedia, New York, 1913, vol. 3, p. 41

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Bu de yi bian, ‘A refutation of “I cannot do otherwise”’ ‘“I cannot do otherwise” refuted’ Date 1665 Original Language Chinese Description Bu de yi bian (sometimes referred to as Bu de yi bian (1) in order to distinguish it from Ferdinand Verbiest’s work of the same name) is a direct refutation of the Chinese Muslim Yang Guangxian’s Pi xie lun (as published in Bu de yi), in which Buglio contests 33 statements against Christianity and the missionaries that are made in Yang’s text. The work usually consists of 54 folios in one binding on Chinese paper. The bulk of the text (folios 2-49) consists of the aforementioned 33 refutations. Folios 50-4 are two appendices, the second of which (Zhongguo chu ren bian, folios 53-4) defends claims made by Li Zubai in his Tian xue chuan gai that the Chinese were the descendants of Adam and Eve. This was a work that Yang had particularly taken issue with. The preface (folio 1) provides the date, the name of the author, and the censors (Magalhaes and Verbiest).



lodovico buglio

395

A variant, which appears to have once been bound in two volumes but has since been rebound into one, also exists. This version has a number of character and line differences, and omits two lines of annotations. It does not include Zhongguo chu ren bian as an appendix, but instead includes the text Tian zhu jiao yue zheng. It is believed that this version of the text is older, and that it was later redacted in order to simplify the language for common readership. Unlike the majority of other works written at the time of the Chinese astronomical controversy, Bu de yi bian does not address issues of astronomy, but of religion. Each half folio is divided into nine columns that usually each contain 18 characters, unless they are quotations of Yang, in which case they usually contain 16 characters. As noted, 33 of Yang’s claims are refuted individually. The text uses some stylistic patterns similar to those in Yang’s work, such as the inclusion of pictures. Whilst Yang’s images had been used to ridicule Christian claims, Buglio includes a picture of Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang, r. 1675-46 BCE) praying for rain in order to illustrate that, like Christ, the emperors of the past suffered for the welfare of others (folio 31). It also includes sections from Buglio’s earlier Tian zhu jiang sheng (1645). The text does not attack Islam directly, rather it attacks Yang and his claims, arguing that these have resulted in people turning away from orthodox Confucianism to heresy. Whilst a number of Buglio’s refutations are Christian in approach, others attempt to illustrate Yang’s incorrect interpretation of Confucianism, reflecting not only the intended readership of the text, but also the competing Jesuit and Muslim efforts at enculturating their respective religions into the Chinese context. The text is therefore primarily apologetic in nature, seeking to defend Christian truth claims against Yang’s polemic. Significance It is of great interest to note the lack of direct references to Islam in the text. This illustrates the greater concern on the part of Buglio with the fact that Christianity was criticised and ill-affected by Yang’s claims, than with the religious identity of those with whom the anti-Jesuit movement had originated. As noted, another point of significance is the text’s focus on religious rather than astronomical concerns. To that extent, the text moves away from the majority of scientific-oriented Jesuit apologies written during the astronomical controversies.

396

lodovico buglio

Publications Ludovico Buglio (Li Leisi), Bu de yi bian, 1665 (original copies of the manuscript, duplicates and facsimilies are kept at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, BNF, the Bodleian Library, and Fujen University. The variant version mentioned above is found at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, JapSin I, 92) Ludovico Buglio (Li Leisi), Bu de yi bian, Shanghai, 1847 Ludovico Buglio (Li Leisi), Bu de yi bian, Shanghai, 1926 Wu Xiangxiang (ed.), Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian, Taibei, 1965, pp. 225-332 Zhou Yang, Ming mo Qing chu Tian zhu jia shi zi liao xin bian, Beijing, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 483-530 Zhou Zhenhe (ed.), Ming Qing zhi ji xi fang chuan jiao shi Hanji cong kan, Nanjing, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 209-61 Studies A. Chan, Chinese materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th-20th centuries. A descriptive catalogue, London, 20152, pp. 144-6 Zhou Yang, Ming mo Qing chu Tianzhujia shiziliao xinbian, Beijing, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 477-87 Xiao Qinghe, ‘Ren fen ren tong yu li fa zhi zheng: yi “Bu de yi” yu “Bu de yi bian” wei zhong xin’, Tian zhu jiao yan jiu lun ji 5 (2008) 166-220 M. Klaue, ‘Wider das Budeyi gelevgen oder scheitern einer ChristlichKonfuzianischen Synthese in der apologetischen Schrift Budeyi Bian (1665) des Jesuiten Ludovico Buglio’, Monumenta Serica 45 (1997) 101-259 J.D. Young, Confucianism and Christianity. The first encounter, Hong Kong, 1983, pp. 97-108



lodovico buglio

397

Tian zhu jiao yuan you, ‘The purpose of Christianity’ ‘The cause of Christianity’ Date 1665 Original Language Chinese Description In 1665 Buglio published Tian zhu jiao yuan you. Although the text is anonymous, the style suggests it was a product of his own hand. The text consists of eight folios and, like Bu de yi bian, each half folio is divided into nine columns consisting in this case of 19 characters each. The text was presented to the Ministry of Rites as a counter to the claims of the Chinese Muslim Yang Guangxian and others, in similar fashion to Bu de yi bian. It similarly provides a basic summary of Catholicism, and is primarily apologetic in style and tone. Like Bu de yi bian, the text does not address Islam directly but instead seeks to counter accusations made against Christianity by explaining Christian doctrine. Significance Like Bu de yi bian, the lack of direct references to the religion of Buglio’s opponents is noteworthy, illustrating the lack of importance for Buglio (or his Chinese audience) of this aspect of the controversy. And, as with his Bu de yi bian, the religious rather than scientific focus of the text makes it stand out among the works written during the controversy. Publications Ludovico Buglio (Li Leisi), Tian zhu jiao yuan you, 1665 (an original copy of the MS and a facsimile are kept at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu) Nicolas Standaert (Zhong Mingdan) and Ad Dudink (Du Dingke), Ye su hui Luoma dang an guan Ming Qing tian zhu jiao wen xian, Taipei, 2002, vol. 8, pp. 139-56 Studies Chan, Chinese materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 454-5

398

lodovico buglio

Zhu jiao yao zhi, ‘The fundamentals of Christianity’ Shengjiao yaozhi, ‘A summary of Christianity’ ‘Essential meaning of Christianity’ Date 1668 Original Language Chinese Description In 1668, Buglio followed up Bu de yi bian and Tian zhu jiao yuan you with Zhu jiao yao zhi (also known as Shengjiao yaozhi). The text consists of 28 folios in a single binding. The first folio is an introduction, including the name of the author and the text’s censors (Gabriel de Magalhaes and Ferdinand Verbiest), the second consists of a table of contents, and the remainder comprises the main text. As in Buglio’s other works, each half folio is divided into nine columns. In this text, each column contains 20 characters. It is effectively identical to his Sheng jiao jian yao, published between 1670 and 1680, which summarises Christian doctrine for potential converts. Zhu jiao yao zhi is divided into 12 sections that cover various doctrinal elements including creation, the Trinity, the Incarnation, treatises on the soul, heaven and hell, the Decalogue, and sections on baptism, confession and good governance under Catholicism. Its contents are therefore laid out like other contemporaneous catechisms. There is some debate on its date; it is possible that the text was written earlier than 1668, perhaps in 1665. No copies of the alternative titled version exist, and it is believed that this title was created through an error of early 20th-century bibliographers. Like Tian zhu jiao yuan you, the work seeks to refute Yang’s charges against Catholicism by way of an explanation of Catholic doctrine. Like Bu de yi bian and Tian zhu jiao yuan you, the text does not address Islam directly, although a later redacted note, written in French on the cover of the manuscript at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, links it to the astronomical controversy and explicitly notes Yang Guangxian and his Muslim religious identity. Further, the final section of the text contains some unfavourable remarks about Buddhism and Taoism. The section on the Incarnation builds and expands on a similar sentence found in Bu de yi bian and an original part of Buglio’s Tian zhu jiang sheng (1645). The final section, on the positive effects of Catholicism on governance (its easing of governance), is directly reproduced from Bu de yi bian and was later included in some versions of his Tian zhu zheng jiao



lodovico buglio

399

yue zheng (1669). There is also evidence that Buglio made use of a text written around 1665, which has not survived to the modern day. Significance The text indicates the ongoing need for apologetic and explanatory works on Christianity, which had been affected by the fallout from the astronomical controversy. Sections taken from Bu de yi bian are especially pertinent for illustrating the continuing relevance of such works. Like Bu de yi bian and Tian zhu jiao yuan you, the lack of references to Islam perhaps suggest that religious identity is unimportant to Buglio. Nevertheless, because he attacks Buddhist and Taoist critics directly, indicating their religious identity, this text perhaps casts new light on the concept that the general existence of opposition rather than the religious nature of the Jesuits’ opponents was of greater importance to Buglio. Rather, on the basis of this text, it could be posited that, because the Muslim scholars had been moved to a position of power, it was in the interests of self-preservation that Buglio did not directly attack these opponents on religious grounds. This text is therefore significant as, in attacking Buddhism and Taoism, it indicates another possible aspect of Buglio’s thought, and the possible reason here and elsewhere for his silence on Islam. Publications Ludovico Buglio (Li Leisi), Zhu jiao yao zhi, 1668 (original manuscripts and facsimilies are kept at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, and BNF) Zhang Xiping (ed.), Fandigang tu shu guan cang Ming Qing Zhong Xi wen hua jiao liu shi wen xian cong kan, Zhengzhou, 2014, vol. 24, pp. 653-716 Studies Chan, Chinese materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 138-9 A. Dudink and N. Standaert, ‘Zhu jiao yao zhi’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Chinese Christian texts database, Grand Rapids MI, 1989; http:// www.arts.kuleuven.be/sinologie/english/cct James Harry Morris

Entji’ Amin Enche’ Amin, Encik Amin, Enci’ Amin, Incek Amin, Entji’ Ambun (Ambon), Inche Ambun, Inchî Ambun, de schrijver Amien Date of Birth Early 17th century Place of Birth Unknown Date of Death Probably last quarter of the 17th century Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Entji’ Amin was of Makarrarese descent. Anwar argues that he was very likely a Malay Muslim from Aceh who had previously lived in the Minangkabau area of Sumatra, because several Minangkabau terms are found in his poem, the Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar (Anwar, ‘Syair Perang Mengkasar’, p. 334). He was also strongly influenced by Acehnese literature, as is attested by the many Acehnese words in his poem. He was very likely associated with the Malay Muslim community in Makassar, which had dominated 17th-century Makassarese trade, and he was proud of the Malay community for their heroism in defending Makassar against the Dutch and their allies. Entji’ Amin was secretary and scribe to Sultan Hasanuddin Tumenanga ri Balla’pangkana (1631-70), the sixteenth sultan of the Islamic kingdom of Goa (Karaeng Goa, or Gowa) and the sultan of Makassar in South Sulawesi from 1653 to 1669. Entji’ Amin most probably wrote his Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar in Ambon. This would account for the reference to him as Inche Ambun (‘a Malay in Ambon’), identified as author of the Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar in the Bibliotheca Marsdeniana (SOAS) manuscript No. 40324 (although Skinner, editor of Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar, regards this spelling as a copyist’s error). Apart from writing various letters and treaties for the Makassar court, including copying (and perhaps even drafting) the Bungaja (or Bongaja, Bongaya) Treaty of 18 November 1667, Entji’ Amin was a man of considerable experience, having good knowledge of both court and commercial life. Entji’ Amin was particularly interested in the ahl al-wujūdiyya stream of Sufism, as championed by Ḥamza Fanṣūrī and Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī.

Entji’ Amin

401

He was most likely a member of the Qādiriyya or Chalwatiyya orders. His familiarity with the kitāb literature of Ḥamza Fanṣūrī, the Hindu wajang purwa heroes, and major Malay-Indian epics is evident in his Sufi mystical vocabularies and certain ‘borrowed’ phrases from the Sumatran mystical poets, and in his reference to Hindu-derived heroes. All these are features of Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Scattered information gleaned from Skinner’s edition of the Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar. Secondary A. Anwar, ‘Syair Perang Mengkasar. Antara otensitas sejarah, transformasi emosi, dan eksistensi komunitas Melayu di Gowa’, Humaniora 21 (2009) 330-7 G.L. Koster, ‘Of treaties and unbelievers. Images of the Dutch in seventeenthand eighteenth-century Malay historiography’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 78 (2005) 59-96 H. Sutherland, ‘The Makassar Malays. Adaptation and identity, c.1660-1790’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32 (2001) 397-421 A. Reid, ‘Understanding Melayu (Malay) as a source of diverse modern identities’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32 (2001) 295-313 G.L. Koster, ‘The Kerajaan at war. The Syair Perang Mengkasar as heroic epic’, in Roaming through seductive gardens. Readings in Malay narrative, Leiden, 1993, 140-84 G.L. Koster, ‘The Kerajaan at war. On the genre, heroic-historical syair’, in Fourth Indonesian-Dutch Historical Conference, Yogyakarta, 1983, 24-9 L.F. Brakel, ‘A third manuscript of the Syair Perang Mengkasar,’ Review of Indonesian and Malayan Affairs 10 (1976) 91-8 Entji’ Amin, Sja’ir Perang Mengkasar. The rhymed chronicle of the Macassar war, ed. and trans. C. Skinner, The Hague, 1963 F.W. Stapel, Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië, Amsterdam, 1939, vol. 3 F.W. Stapel, ‘Cornelis Janszoon Speelman’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 94 (1936) 1-169 F.W. Stapel, Het Bongaais Verdrag, Groningen, 1922 MS The Hague, Koloniaal Archief – Makassar Register of the Colonial Archives in the General State Archives 1157j, C.J. Speelman, ‘Speelman in Makassar to Batavia’ (letter dated 24 October 1668)

402 Entji’ Amin

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar, ‘The rhymed chronicle of the Makassar War’ Date 1669-70 Original Language Court Malay Description According to Entji’ Amin’s own words, Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar, on the bloody Makassar War, is based on current accounts that he himself has either seen or partly heard from others (verses 204, 229a-b), including someone from the Minangkabau region. The Makassar War broke out in December 1666, when some 21 Dutch warships with 600 Dutch troops accompanied by their allies (Bugis and Ambonese auxiliaries) attacked Makassar after failing to negotiate a resolution to a conflict related to the lucrative spice trade monopoly. The Malays and Javanese, who were reaping financial benefits from the British clove-smuggling out of Dutch Amboina, persuaded Sultan Hasanuddin to wage war against the Dutch by making a spurious claim that the British had won victories in the Second Anglo-Dutch war. The Dutch Admiral Cornelis Janszoon Speelman successfully persuaded the Buginese princeling Arung Palakka to join the VOC in waging war against Makassar. According to the Sya’ir, the Makassar War caused many casualties on both sides, and Makassar was forced by starvation to surrender in 1669 (verse 526). Entji’ Amin concludes his poem with the defeat of Makassar at the hands of the Dutch and their local allies (verse 526), forcing the Makassarese sultanate to accept Dutch control and their monopoly on the spice trade. Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar is ‘the oldest preserved historical syair on war’ (Koster, ‘The Kerajaan at war’, p. 146). It contains 2,136 lines, and consists of 534 ‘Malay narrative verses’, the so-called sja’ir metres. In composing it, Entji’ Amin was influenced by other prominent Malay writers of his general period, among them Ḥamza Fanṣūrī (mid-1500s), Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī (early 1600s), Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī and ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf al-Singkilī (mid to late 1600s). In the Sya’ir, he particularly uses Ḥamza Fanṣūrī’s style of poetry, with four-line verses and a mono-rhyme quatrain ending in -a, -a, -a, -a.

Entji’ Amin

403

The literary structure of Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar consists of an introduction (28 verses) with the embedded first eulogy (12 verses), the epilogue (21 verses), and the narrative of the Makassar War (less than 500 verses), itself comprising two distinct war accounts separated by the second and third eulogies (5 and 3 verses respectively). The first war account reports events occurring after the VOC expedition to the Moluccas and before the Bugis uprising in Boné, whereas the second account is devoted to events occurring after the signing of the Bungaja Treaty and before hostilities resumed. The first 24 verses of the Sya’ir include the religious introduction (verses 1-12): praise of God (verses 1-4), praise of the Prophet Muḥammad (verses 5-8), and praise of the ‘Companions’ (verses 10-12); then praise of Sultan Hasanuddin (verses 13-24), followed by the writer’s apologies (verses 25-8). The rest of the Sya’ir is dedicated to the chronicle of the Makassar War (verses 29-513), followed by the author’s summary (verses 515-24), his identity and final apologies (verses 525-34). Taking an exclusively Makassarese viewpoint, Entji’ Amin depicts the events of the Makassar War in his Sya’ir as a jihad spread over five Islamic years (1077-81/1666-70) fought by the courageous Makassarese Muslims (of Goa and Tallo) led by Sultan Hasanuddin against their enemies, ‘the Christian Dutch’, ‘the infidel Dutch’ (VOC) with their local allies (the Bugis, Butonese and Sula folks) led by ‘the Christian commanderin-chief ’ Speelman and the ‘rebel’ Bugis general, Arung Palakka. The wellarmed Malay community, led by their prominent political and military leader Datu’ Maharadjaléla, pledged their full support to Sultan Hasanuddin (verses 62, 193, 275, 321-2, 331-3, 340). The VOC Admiral Speelman admitted that the fighting Malays ‘were even more virulent enemies of the Company than the Makassar people themselves’ (Sutherland, ‘The Makassar Malays’, p. 401). The Sya’ir describes the Makassar War as a war between right and wrong, the former represented by the ‘valiant and blessed’, ‘most pious’, ‘most noble’ and ‘perfect’ ruler (verses 19, 16a, 17c-d; 65b, 278a, 404a; 22b, 146, 226a; cf. 146), who is the ‘most respected and wise king’, the ‘staunch adherent of the divine law’ (verses 15, 20, 145c), Sultan Hasanuddin, and his ‘brave’ and ‘good’ Makassarese Muslims. In contrast, the latter, those in the wrong, are the enemies, namely the ‘damned’, ‘infidel’, ‘thievish’, ‘devilish’ Dutch (verses 84, 229d, 126a, 148a-b, 485c, 495c; 93c, 210a-b, 213c, 337d; 290b, 100b; 43c, 253d) and their local allies (verses 226a, 126), a ‘poor sort of Muslims’ (verse 521c-d). Moreover, the

404

entji’ amin

Makassar War is designated as a jihad (verses 528, 312c-d, 372, 104c-d, 523, 129; cf. 431c-d, 55c-d, 58c-d, 351) rooted in religious antagonism between ‘all good Muslims’ (verses 42c, 528) led by Sultan Hasanuddin, and the ‘Christian infidels’ (verse 395a), also called the ‘accursed of God’ (verse 55d), ‘the infidel devils’, the ‘devilish’, ‘swinish’ Dutch (verses 308a-b, 43c, 253d). On the one hand, Sultan Hasanuddin is acknowledged as ‘an expert reciter of the Qur’an’ (verse 16c) who is ‘devoted to the service of God and His Prophet’ (verses 15c-d, 17b); he is also designated as the ‘beloved of God and the Prophet’ (verse 145c) and ‘always surrounded by alim ʿulamāʾ (Muslim scholars)’. On the other hand, the Dutch (verses 62, 438; cf. 439b) are presented as ‘wretched Christians’ (verse 266d). They are ‘treacherous’, ‘vile infidels’ (verses 94a, 243d, 213c), led by the ‘cursed’, ‘treacherous’, ‘infidel’, ‘greedy’, ‘overbearing Christian admiral’ (verses 79a, 112a, 263d, 73a, 466d), ‘the devil’s general’ (verse 469c), Cornelis Speelman (cf. verses 29b-c, 486a-b); they are called the ‘damned Hollanders’, the ‘Dutch dogs’, ‘foul’, ‘infidel dogs’ (verses 50c, 210b, 435d), and the ‘accursed of God’ (verse 55d), who must be fought against and defeated (verses 148a-b, 312a,c-d, 351, 356a-c). The poem was not designed as an objective or historiographical account; it deliberately uses metaphorical exaggeration and flattery, the commonly expected literary devices of its time. Nevertheless, it is generally in accord with contemporary Dutch records such as those of F.W. Stapel, whose account was based on VOC archives. An example is the relatively accurate number of troops on Speelman’s side and the records of heavy losses suffered by the defeated Makassarese. Entji’ Amin formally dedicates Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar as a royal eulogy to ‘the hero’ Sultan Hasanuddin, though it was intended to reach the Malay Muslims in Sumatra as its primary audience (Anwar, ‘Syair Perang Mengkasar’, p. 335). He gives credit to more than 16 fellow Malays for their bravery and fierce opposition to the VOC and their allies. Significance For Entji’ Amin, the Makassar War was a jihad waged by Muslims against the Dutch Christians (verses 312, 523, 528). The moral of his Sya’ir is that none should ever befriend the treacherous, cunning and devilish Dutch (verse 514; cf. 26, 43c, 243, 400b). Entji’ Amin regarded the defeat of Makassar as the will of God (verses 516, 520a-b, 521a-b, 524d). He does not address the point that God did not answer the prayers of the pious Sultan Hasanuddin and his heroic Makassarese (verses 15, 16a,17, 20b, 42c, 58, 104, 272, 312c-d, 431, 528, 129,

Illustration 10. The conquest of Makassar by Speelman from 1666 to 1669 (engraving by Romeyn de Hooge)

Entji’ Amin 405

406

entji’ amin

520, 523, 528), but instead concludes that he is a sinful author, ‘a man of little insight’, ‘not a man of intelligence’ but a ‘wretched outcast’, who wrote ‘poor’ verses with ‘many deficiencies’, thus deserving ‘no merit in listening to his story’ (verses 529-34). Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar and Hikayat Hang Tuah (‘The epic of Hang Tuah’, probably composed in the late 17th century) could be regarded as the first epics in the Malay-Indonesian world that depict resistance to colonialism, leading on to other similar national epics of Islamic heroism such as Do Karim’s Hikayat Prang Kompeni and Cik Pante Kulu’s Hikayat Prang Sabi (both composed at the end of the 19th century). Apart from Entji’ Amin’s Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar, the earliest literary source on the Makassar War, the Makassarese later had their own narrative version of the war, Sinriliq Kappalaq Tallumbatua (also known as Sinrillikna Kappalak Tallumbatua) or The three ships (of unknown origin), a popular Makassarese epic tale that appeared in seven variants in Lontara script. This deals particularly with the aspirations of the Makassarese and their resistance against foes in an allegorical setting rather than being a historical account. Thus, in contrast with Entji’ Amin’s poem, Sinriliq Kappalaq Tallumbatua allegorically depicts the Bugis leader Arung Palakka as the Makassarese son and heir of the ruler of Gowa, Andi Patunru. He accidentally injured his father with pieces of a broken window and was forced to flee when his father threatened him with death. Together with his allies he then defeated his father and built a new social order. Publications MS Kuala Lumpur, Muzium Seni Asia – UM 81.163, 434 verses (pre1710; Malay; known as the Valentijn MS; likely to be the original of Codex Orientalis 1626) MS Leiden, University Library – Codex Orientalis 1626 (Cod. Or. Bibl. Lugd. 1626), 6 pages (31-36), 1-73 verses (1710; Malay; referred to by Skinner as L; copied by Cornelia Valentijn around 1710, without any Makassarese influence in vocabulary or style) MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – 12902, verses 1-15 (1791; Malay – probably from Sumatra; among the copyist’s sundry notes at the end of the Hikayat Seri Rama)

Entji’ Amin

407

MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – 40324, 38 folios (76 pages, only 70 pages dedicated to the text), verses 14-534 (1800; Malay; referred to by Skinner as S; probably written in the Minangkabau to Bencoolen areas, having Minangkabau-Malay influence; cannot be a copy of L) C. Skinner, ‘Sja’ir Perang Mengkasar. A critical edition with notes and commentary’, London, 1961 (Diss. University of London) Entji’ Amin, Sja’ir Perang Mengkasar. The rhymed chronicle of the Macassar War, ed. and trans. C. Skinner, The Hague, 1963 (critical edition with English trans.) Brakel, ‘A third manuscript’ (publication and discussion of the first 15½ verses of Shair Pĕrang Mĕngkasar, SOAS 12902) G.L. Koster, Roaming through seductive gardens. Readings in Malay narrative, Leiden, 1993, pp. 153-178 (contains revisions of Skinner’s English trans. of certain Malay verses) Entji’ Amin, Sja’ir perang Mengkasar, ed. Akademi Pengajian Melayu, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 1994 (facsimile reprint of the Valentijn manuscript, UM 81.163) Koster, ‘Of treaties and unbelievers’ (contains English trans. of incomplete quotations of the Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar) Entji’ Amin, Sja’ir Perang Mengkasar, ed. and trans. Abdul Rahman Abu and C. Skinner, Jakarta, 2008 (Indonesian publication of Skinner’s 1963 study) Studies W. Cummings, ‘Rethinking the translation in translation studies. Questions from Makassar, Indonesia’, in Eva Tsoi Hung and Judy Wakabayashi (eds), Asian translation traditions, Abingdon, 2014, 195-210 E.I.M. Hum, ‘Verbalization text “The war poem Mengkasar”. Cleave apart expression heroism and multiculturalism’, Research on Humanities and Social Sciences 4 (2014) 25-30 Y.F. Liaw, A history of classical Malay literature, Singapore, 2013, pp. 469-77 I.F. Rahardy, ‘Resistensi orang-orang Makassar terhadap kolonialisme Belanda serta kontestasi antara Goa dan Bone dalam Syair Perang Mengkasar’ [The resistance of the Makassar people to Dutch colonialism and the competition between Goa and Bone in Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar], Yogyakarta, 2013 (Diss. Gadjah Mada University)

408

entji’ amin

B. Kurniawan, ‘Wacana antikolonial dalam teks-teks sastra Melayu klasik sebagai perlawanan rakyat Melayu terhadap kolonialisme Belanda: Analisis pascakolonial’ [Anticolonial discourse in the texts of classical Malay literature as Malay resistance against the colonial Dutch. A post-colonial analysis], Yogyakarta, 2012 (Diss. Gadjah Mada University) B.S.E. Purwanto, ‘Historiografi Melayu Sufistik. Syair Perang Mengkasar’ [Malay historiography. Sufi Makassar war poem], Makassar, 2012 (Diss. Hasanuddin University) S.F. Ng, ‘Dutch wars, global trade, and the heroic poem. Dryden’s Annus mirabilis (1666) and Amin’s Syair Perang Mengkasar (1670)’, Modern Philology 109 (2012) 352-84 T. Iskandar, ‘Aceh as a crucible of Muslim-Malay literature’, in R.M. Feener, P. Daly and A. Reid (eds), Mapping the Achenese past, Leiden, 2011, 39-64 S.H. Haji Salleh, ‘Skinner’s and Koster’s research on the Syair on war’, Malay Literature of the 19th Century, Kuala Lumpur, 2010, 291-7 I.C. Esteban, ‘The narrative of war in Makassar. Its ambiguities and contradictions’, Sari - International Journal of the Malay World and Civilisation 28 (2010) 129-49 V. Braginsky, ‘“Newly found” manuscripts that were never lost. Three François Valentijn manuscripts in the collection of Muzium Seni Asia (MS UM 81.163)’, Indonesia and the Malay World 38 (2010) 419-58 Mencari yang hilang dalam Syair Perang Mengkasar [In search of that which is lost in the Syair Perang Mengkasar], ed. Ininnawa Online (Informasi Online Penerbit Ininnawa), 2010; http://penerbit-ininnawa.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/mencari-yang-hilang-dalam-syairperang.html S. Halikowski-Smith, ‘No obvious home. The flight of the Portuguese ‘tribe’ from Makassar to Ayutthaya and Cambodia during the 1660s’, International Journal of Asian Studies 7 (2010) 1-28 S. Halikowski-Smith, ‘No obvious home. The flight of the Portuguese “tribe” from Makassar to Ayutthaya and Cambodia during the 1660s’, International Journal of Asian Studies 7/1 (2010) 1-28 Anwar, ‘Syair Perang Mengkasar’ V. Braginsky and B. Murtagh, The portrayal of foreigners in Indonesian and Malay literatures. Essay on the ethnic ‘other’, New York, 2007 W.P. Cummings, A chain of kings. The Makassarese chronicles of Gowa and Talloq, Leiden, 2007

Entji’ Amin

409

W.M. Abdul Hadi, ‘Penulis Aceh dan estetika Islam. Dari sastra Melayu ke sastra Indonesia’ [Acehnese authors and aesthetic Islam. From Malay to Indonesian literature], in Seminar “Menelusuri jejak sastra di Aceh dari Hamzah Fansuri sampai generasi terkini” [Tracing the literary footsteps in Aceh from Ḥamza Fanṣūrī to the latest generation], ed. Piasan Sastra Aceh, Gedung IX Fakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, 2007 Koster, ‘Of treaties and unbelievers’ V.I. Braginskiĭ, The comparative study of traditional Asian literatures. From reflective traditionalism to neo-traditionalism, London, 2001 Sutherland, ‘The Makassar Malays’ P.H. Kratoska, South East Asia, colonial history. Imperialism before 1800, London, 2001 W. Cummings, ‘The dynamics of resistance and emulation in Makassarese history’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32 (2001) 423-35 A. Reid, ‘Pluralism and progress in seventeenth-century Makassar’, in R. Tol, K. van Dijk and G. Acciaioli (eds), Authority and enterprise among the peoples of South Sulawesi (Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde 156/3), Leiden, 2000, 433-49 A. Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, 1450-1680. Expansion and crisis, vol. 2, New Haven CT, 1995 Koster, Roaming through seductive gardens, 140-84 Sinrillikna Kappalak Tallumbatua, Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1993 V.I. Braginsky, ‘Evolution of the verse structure of the Malay syair’, Archipel 42 (1991) 133-54 L.Y. Andaya, ‘Kingship-adat rivalry and the role of Islam in South Sulawesi’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 15 (1984) 22-42 Koster, ‘The Kerajaan at war’ M.C. Ricklefs and P. Voorhoeve, ‘Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain. Addenda et corrigenda’, BSOAS 45 (1982) 300-22 L.Y. Andaya, The heritage of Arung Palakka. A history of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the seventeenth century, The Hague, 1981 Brakel, ‘A third manuscript’ R. Jones, ‘The date of the SOAS manuscript of the Sjair Perang Mengkasar’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975) 418-20 A. Teeuw, ‘The Malay shair. Problems of origin and tradition’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 122 (1966) 429-46

410

entji’ amin

Entji’ Amin, Sya’ir Perang Mengkasar, ed. and trans. Skinner D.K. Bassett, ‘English trade in Celebes, 1613-1667’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 31 (1958) 1-39 G.W.J. Drewes and P. Voorhoeve, Adat Atjèh, The Hague, 1958 Stapel, Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië, vol. 3 J.E. Heeres, Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, Part 2 (16501675), The Hague, 1931 P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, vol. 1, The Hague, 1931 Johannes Effendi

ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf al-Singkilī ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf ibn ʿAlī l-Jāwī l-Fanṣūrī l-Singkilī Date of Birth Approximately 1615 Place of Birth Singkel, Sumatra Date of Death Approximately 1693 Place of Death Kota Aceh

Biography

Little can be said about the first two decades of the life of ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf. His full name points to a likely place of birth on the west coast of Sumatra in the town of Singkel. He would have grown up in the years of ascendancy of the kingdom of Aceh during the reign of its greatest sultan, Iskandar Muda (r. 1607-36). Aceh’s interaction with predominantly Christian European colonial powers increased rapidly during this period, but the extent to which these contacts had an impact on ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf ’s immediate environment is difficult to determine. The details of his life become clearer from 1642, when he left Aceh to study in Arabia. He remained there for 19 years. An autobiographical codicil is found in manuscript records of his work ʿUmdat al-muḥtājīn. This codicil identifies the places where he studied and also his teachers, the two most famous of whom were Aḥmad al-Qushāshī (d. 1661) and Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī (d. 1690). ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf undertook in-depth studies of various Sufi movements, attaining an ijāza from Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī in relation to the Shaṭṭariyya order. On his return to Aceh in 1661, ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf was appointed as Shaykh al-Islām by Sultana Tāj al-ʿĀlam Safiyyat al-Dīn Shāh. As the foremost religious authority in the sultanate, ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf spent the next three decades writing many works, both long and short, in Arabic and Malay, on diverse Islamic sciences: exegesis, jurisprudence, theology and mysticism. While none of his works were devoted specifically to Christianity and Christians, occasional references do appear in his various writings. These references typically represent echoes of views and attitudes that he acquired in his earlier studies in Arabia, showing mechanisms for transmission from the Middle East to Southeast Asia of attitudes towards other faiths. In his role as Shaykh al-Islām, ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf would have

412

ʿabd al-ra⁠ʾūf al-singkilī

interacted with representatives of the colonial powers, but such interactions have not been recorded in his writings.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary P. Riddell, Transferring a tradition. ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf al-Singkilī's rendering into Malay of the Jalālayn commentary, Berkeley, 1990, pp. 223-38 (romanised and translated text of the author’s autobiographical travelogue) Secondary P. Riddell, art. ‘Abdurrauf Singkili’, EI3, vol. 1, pp. 27-30 A. Johns, ‘ ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾuf of Singkel (1615-1693) and the vernacularization of tafsir. An apotheosis of the madrasa tradition’, in I. Alee et al. (eds), Islamic studies in Asean. Presentations of an international seminar, Pattani, 2000, 159-77 O. Faturaman, Menyoal wahdatul wujud. Kasus Abdurrauf Singkel di Aceh Abad 17, Bandung, 1999, pp. 25-30 Riddell, Transferring a tradition, pp. 10-24 P. Voorhoeve, ‘Bajan Tadjalli’, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 23 (1952) 87-115 D.A. Rinkes, Abdoerraoef van Singkel, Heerenveen, 1909, pp. 25-8

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Lubb al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-mā yarāhu al-muḥtaḍar bi-l-ʿiyān, ‘Essential exposition and clarification on the visionary experience of the dying and what gladdens him’ Date Early 1660s Original Language Arabic Description It is likely that ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf composed Lubb al-kashf shortly after his return to Aceh from Arabia in 1661. His Arabic text was rendered into Malay by Kātib Seri Raja ibn Ḥamza l-Āshī l-Qādirī l-Shaṭṭārī. This work represents ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf’s reflection on a Jawi Malay text he encountered, which was itself based on Kitāb al-tadhkira bi-umūr al-ākhira by the famous 13th-century Andalusian Malikite scholar al-Qurṭubī (d. 1272). Lubb al-kashf therefore serves as a vehicle for the transmission of views



ʿabd al-ra⁠ʾūf al-singkilī

413

and teachings from the medieval Arab world to the younger Islamic communities in Southeast Asia. The work begins with the statement: ‘When a person is at the point of death he experiences several visions’, which tempt the dying person to abandon Islam and to turn to other faiths. It gives ample consideration to the role of the faiths ‘of the Book’, namely Christianity and Judaism, during the death-process of a believing Muslim. These faiths are identified clearly as having strayed from the true path. The Christians and Jews are presented, along with Satan, as those who tempt the dying to abandon Islam during the process of dying: ‘. . . a vision of black appears to him, which is Satan . . . a vision of red appears to him, which represents the Christians . . . a vision of yellow appears to him, which represents the Jews . . . When a vision of white appears to him, which represents the vision of our prophet Muḥammad the messenger of Allah, then he should utter “By the will of Allah he was one of the true believers” ’ (Riddell, ‘How Allah communicates’, p. 163). In Lubb al-kashf, demons are described as disguising themselves as the parents of the dying in an attempt to lure the believer towards Christianity and Judaism: When a servant of Allāh is at the point of death, two devils sit next to him, one on his right and one on his left. The devil on his right takes the form of his father, and says to him: ‘O my child, I truly love and cherish you. Please die in the Christian faith, as it is the best of religions.’ The devil on his left takes the form of his mother, and says to him: ‘O my child, my womb was your shelter, my milk was your nourishment and my lap was your place of repose. Please die in the Jewish faith, as it is the best of religions’ (Riddell, ‘How Allah communicates’, pp. 163-4). Significance Though only a short work, Lubb al-kashf ’s significance should not be underestimated. First, it engages with matters of common concern to individuals regarding the experience of death. Second, it acts as a vehicle for the transmission of teachings by a major Islamic scholar from the late ʿAbbasid period, whom it identifies for the benefit of its readers. Third, it sows seeds that potentially shape negative attitudes towards the faiths and followers of Christianity and Judaism in the minds of its Muslim readers.

414

ʿabd al-ra⁠ʾūf al-singkilī

Publications MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – Marsden Collection 12151, pp 1-15 (1784; Arabic text) MS Aceh, Museum Negeri Aceh (Date not given; Arabic and Malay text) MS Breda, Ethnographic Museum – 10061 D, fols 19v-28v (Date not given; Malay text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 5660, fols 1v-5r (Date not given; Arabic text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 5665 (Date not given; Arabic text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 7255, fols 20r-25v (Date not given; Malay text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 7255, fols 27v-35r (Date not given; Arabic text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 8214, pp. 50-67 (Date not given; Malay text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 8214, pp. 77-102 (Date not given; Arabic text) MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or. 8400 (Date not given; Arabic text) MS Leningrad, Academy – B 4024 (Date not given; Malay text fragment) MS London, Royal Asiatic Society – M 127 (Date not given; Malay text fragment) Voorhoeve, ‘Bajān Tadjallī’, pp. 91-9 (transliterated Malay text) P. Voorhoeve, Bayān Tajallī (bahan-bahan untuk mengadakan penyelidikan lebih mendalam tentang Abdurrauf Singkel), trans. Aboe Bakar, Banda Aceh, 1980, pp. 7-18 (transliterated Malay text) P. Riddell, ‘How Allah communicates. Islamic angels, devils and the 2004 Tsunami’, in P. Riddell and B. Smith Riddell (eds), Angels and demons. Perspectives and practice in diverse religious traditions, Leicester, 2007, 162-5 (partial English trans.) Studies Riddell, ‘How Allah communicates’ P. Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian world. Transmission and responses, London, 2001, pp. 130-1 Voorhoeve, Bayān Tajallī Voorhoeve, ‘Bajān Tadjallī’



ʿabd al-ra⁠ʾūf al-singkilī

415

Tarjumān al-Mustafīd, ‘The interpreter of the Beneficial’ Date Approximately 1675 Original Language Arabic and Malay Description This work has traditionally been regarded throughout the Malay world as a translation of the famous commentary Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta⁠ʾwīl by al-Bayḍāwī. In fact, its sources are composite: it draws heavily on the Jalālayn commentary, with smaller additions from the commentaries by al-Bayḍāwī and al-Khāzin. It is of similar length to the Jalālayn. The authorship of Tarjumān al-Mustafīd is also composite. ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf himself prepared the core commentary based on the Jalālayn, and his student Dāʾūd Rūmī added information from the other exegetical sources, providing short narrative pericopes as well as details on the variant readings (qirāʾāt). The composite nature of the authorship suggests that the work was not finalised until well after ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf ’s return to Aceh from Arabia. Hence a date of completion of the work around 1675 is likely. The views of Christians and Christianity that are evident in Tarjumān al-Mustafīd reflect a process of transmission from its sources, especially the Jalālayn commentary. Certain views and attitudes shaped by longterm contact between Christians and Muslims in the Arab world were received by younger Islamic communities in Southeast Asia with much less experience of contact with Christians. Some of these views were neutral, others were condemnatory. For example, in interpreting Q 18:22, which refers to uncertainty regarding the number of the companions of the cave, ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf indicates that ‘two views were held by the Christians of Najrān, while they were guessing about the unseen’. In contrast, a more negative reference to Christians is offered by ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf in interpreting Q 1:7, where he draws directly on the Jalālayn in writing that ‘the way of those who have gone astray is the way of the Christians’. Significance The significance of this work lies in the fact that it was the earliest commentary written in Malay on the whole Qur’an. Moreover, until the early 20th century it remained the primary commentary in Malay and enjoyed a wide distribution throughout Southeast Asia. Tarjumān al-Mustafīd

416

ʿabd al-ra⁠ʾūf al-singkilī

continues to be printed and distributed throughout Malaysia, Sumatra and Java. Although Tarjumān al-Mustafīd largely represents an echo of the Jalālayn commentary in its statements on Christians and Christianity, the two works played quite different roles in their respective contexts. Tarjumān al-Mustafīd, as the pioneer commentary in Malay, laid the groundwork for the emerging attitudes of its Malay Muslim readers towards Christians, whereas the Jalālayn built on views that had been in place in the Arab world for many centuries. Publications MS Jakarta, National Library – ML 116, fols 1-123 (probably late 17th century; a composite manuscript covering Suras 18:75-50:36) MS Jakarta, National Library – ML 291 (1843; covering Suras 1:1-17:111 MS Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek – Cod. Or.7596 (late 19th century; covering Suras 30:5-40:7) MS Jakarta, National Library – ML 373 (Date not given; covering Suras 1:1-9:88) MS Tanoh Abee, Aceh, Dayah Tanoh Abee – (Date not given; covering Suras 1:1-9:129) MS Jakarta, National Library – ML 41 (Date not given; covering Suras 1:1-28:26) MS Jakarta, National Library – ML 322 (Date not given; covering Suras 6:124-17:111) MS Jakarta, National Library – A 233 (Date not given; covering Suras 18:75-114:6) MS Jakarta, National Library – ML 290 (Date not given; covering Suras 29:45-77:50 MS Tanoh Abee, Aceh, Dayah Tanoh Abee – (Date not given; covering Suras 70:19-114:6) ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf ibn al-Shaykh ʿAlī l-Fanṣūrī l-Jāwī, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd, 2 vols, Istanbul, 1884 ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd, Singapore: Sulaymān Marāghī, 1951 ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī l-Fanṣūrī, Tafsīr Anwār al-Bayḍāwī, Penang: Persamar Press, n.d. Riddell, Transferring a tradition, pp. 130-234 (transliteration into romanised Malay and translation into English of juzʾ 16)



ʿabd al-ra⁠ʾūf al-singkilī

417

Studies E. Nurtawab, ‘Discourse on translation in hermeneutics. Its application to the analysis of Abdurra⁠ʾūf ’s Turjumān al-Mustafīd’, Jakarta, 2007 (MA Diss. Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University) Johns, ‘ ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf of Singkel’ A. Johns, ‘The Qurʾān in the Malay world. Reflections on ʿAbd al-Ra⁠ʾūf of Singkel 1615–1693’, Journal of Islamic Studies 9 (1998) 120-45 Riddell, Transferring a tradition S. Harun, ‘Hakekat tafsir Tarjumān al-Mustafīd karya Syekh Abdurrauf Singkel’, Jakarta, 1988 (PhD Diss. Institut Agama Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah) Peter Riddell

Jesuit Makasar documents and the Documenta Malucensia Date 1542-1682 Original Language Dutch Description Documenta Malucensia (DM) was compiled by Hubert Jacobs in 1974-84 in three chronological volumes, totalling about 2,200 pages: volume 1, 1542-77; volume 2, 1577-1606; and volume 3, 1606-82. The Jesuit Makasar documents (1615-82) ( JMD), also collected by Jacobs in 1988, appear as a single volume, running to about 320 pages. They draw on documents found mainly in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), together with others from Spain (in particular, the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, but also the National Archives in Madrid), and some from Portugal, Belgium, Britain and the Propaganda Fide in Rome. Together, these works record the activities of the Jesuits in the eastern part of the Malay Archipelago in the 16th and 17th centuries. On their journey eastwards, searching for trade in spices and people to evangelise, the Portuguese conquered Malacca in 1511 and signed their first treaty with the Sultan of Ternate in 1522. The name Maluku may find its origins in the Arabic word for king, malik, pl. mulūk. There were four petty kingdoms, the two most important of which were located on small volcanic islands, Ternate and Tidore, each with a diameter of just 6 km and a 1,750m-high volcano. The island of Bacan and the sultanate of Jailolo on the west side of the large island of Halmahera completed the socio-political make-up of the region. The Portuguese arrived just 50 years after the arrival of Islam: between 1450 and 1475, all the four kingdoms embraced Islam, facilitated by missionaries from the western coast of Sumatra and the Javanese Muslim harbours of Demak, Japara and Gresik. Sultan Tabarija of Ternate had been ruling since 1532. Accused of betrayal, he was sent into exile to Goa by the commander of the Portuguese fortress of Ternate. Goa had been exposed to Christianity, so in the late 1530s the sultan and two other noblemen were baptised, with the sultan adopting the name Dom Manuel. In 1566, Melchior Nunes Barreto, vice-provincial of the Jesuits in India, wrote about these particular conversions, stating that they took place to gain the favour of the

jesuit makasar documents and the documenta malucensia

419

successive commanders of the Portuguese and thereby [secure] their protection against the Muslims (DM, vol. 1, p. 487). In 1544, Tabarija/Manuel was ‘nominated a vassal’ of the king of Portugal and returned with de Freitas to Ternate to resume his office. The mission was initially successful and his successor, Sultan Hairun, was sent to Malacca. However, ‘Dom Manuel’ died on 30 June 1545 and Hairun returned to Ternate, this time under the protection of a new Portuguese governor. His story shows the mixed interest of the Portuguese in trade, power and the expansion of Christianity, with special attention to the conversion of Muslim rulers. Francis Xavier arrived in Goa in 1542. In September 1545, he left for Malacca and continued his journey to Ambon, arriving on 14 February 1546. This date marks the beginning of a Jesuit mission in East Indonesia that lasted until 1688. Initially, there was optimism regarding the conversion of the many pagans in the region, as well as some Muslim rulers and their subjects. Sultan Hairun promised Xavier that one of his sons would become a Christian, but this never materialised. The greatest hope lay with the mission in Bacan, where its young sultan asked for Portuguese priests and was baptised with the new name of João I in June 1557, later followed by some members of his family. Sultan Hairun of Ternate summoned him to return to Islam, but João sided with the Portuguese until the late 1560s when under continuing pressure from Hairun he did return. On 28 February 1570, the Portuguese killed Sultan Hairun during a visit to their fortress, but this had disastrous consequences and the Portuguese soon came to regret it. Hairun’s son Baab Ullah succeeded to the throne and took an oath that he would avenge his father’s murder. Consequently, Bacan was destroyed by Ternatan forces in 1571 and four years later the Portuguese were forced to leave Ternate, taking refuge on the island of its rival, Tidore. Besides two fortresses in Ternate (and later Tidore), the Portuguese also established a feitoria or trading post in Ambon, which provided a good, safe harbour and was relatively isolated. They established a Christian settlement (  Jacobs, ‘Ambon as a Portuguese and Catholic town’) amidst a mosaic of Muslim and pagan villages. In the 1560s, five Jesuit priests worked in Ambon and related islands, and by the late 16th century Ambon had developed into their major stronghold. In 1605, however, the Portuguese fortress of Ambon was conquered by the Dutch, who then maintained the religious boundaries between Muslims and Christians but expelled the Catholic clergy and included

420

jesuit makasar documents and the documenta malucensia

the local Christians within the Reformed tradition. In 1606, the Spaniards from their base in Manila established a fortress in Ternate, leading to a modest revival of Catholicism in the area in spite of the neighbouring Dutch fortress, which was built in the same year. In 1662, after a Chinese attack on Manila, the Spanish were forced to abandon Ternate, their last stronghold in the Malay Archipelago. Besides the northern islands of the Moluccas, there were pockets of Christians in Moro (north of Halmahera), Manado, Sangir and the Talaud islands. The Jesuits were also active in Makassar (also written as Makasar, Macassar), where the ruler remained uncommitted in his religious affiliation until the Karaeng of Tallo declared, on 22 September 1605, that he and his realm would be Muslim. Other rulers in southern Sulawesi soon followed suit. In 1658, the Jesuit priest André Ferrão reported that the court of Makassar had sent envoys to Portuguese and Muslim courts, determined to embrace the first religion that responded. Portuguese Malacca delayed in sending priests, so Makassar adopted Islam ( JMD, pp. 151-9). Nevertheless, the Jesuits persevered in the Makassar region from 1617 to 1618 and again from 1646 to 1668, following the conquest of Malacca by the Dutch in 1641, when Makassar was a relatively open and multi-religious society and where Portuguese and others from Malacca had taken refuge. However, the sultan of Makassar was defeated in 1667 and all Catholic priests were forced to leave the region, as with other areas under Dutch rule. During this 60-year period, 234 Jesuits were assigned to work in the Moluccas and 15 in Makassar. Many more paid shorter or longer visits to these regions. In total, there are 713 documents available from the Jesuit missionaries in the Moluccan and Makassar regions, totalling 2,500 pages as published by Jacobs. They give detailed, albeit fragmentary information about the historical developments outlined here. The most prominent of the missionaries are without doubt the founder of the Moluccan mission, Francis Xavier, and the visitor, Alessandro Valignano. Often, visitors and superiors writing from a distance appear to give a more general overview than those living in the region itself; the latter often only provide internal communications. The documents contain little general information or commentary about Islam, which was often labelled ‘the sect or law (seita or lei) of Mafamede’. Most of the information concerns local relations and practice. In his first report, Francis Xavier states the there are many more pagans than Muslims. The ‘only good thing about Muslims here is that

jesuit makasar documents and the documenta malucensia

421

they know so little about their own perverted sect’ (secta preversa, DM, vol. 1, p. 11). In 1602, the Jesuit Lorenzo Masonio writes in an annual report to Goa that the Muslims in the Moluccas are much less fanatical than those in Malabar (DM, vol. 2, p. 589). There is some interest in the global conflict between Christians and Muslims. Writing in June 1573 to the pope in Rome, the bishop of Malacca expresses his delight at the outcome of the Battle of Lepanto (1571), saying he hopes that this will be the beginning of the final victory over the Muslims, and result in the conquest of towns such as Constantinople and Jerusalem. However, this bishop, a Dominican friar, also levels severe criticism against the Jesuits of Ternate, the main instigators in the killing of the Muslim ruler Hairun, ‘who was at peace with us’ (DM, vol. 1, pp. 639-43). These documents offer interesting internal contradictions. Sultan Hairun of Ternate, in particular, inspires a range of very different comments. He is reported as someone who could speak Portuguese fluently (DM, vol. 1, p. 40), ‘had neither knowledge nor fear of God’ (DM, vol. 1, p. 149) and was ‘more atheist than Muslim’ (DM, vol. 1, p. 234). Besides the frequently expressed hope that Hairun would become a Christian, there are reports that he persecuted and killed Christians. Francis Xavier quotes him in a letter of 1548 as saying ‘that Christians and Muslims share the same God’ (Christianos y Moros teníamos un Dios común) (DM, vol. 1, p. 40). However, the superior of the Jesuits in the Moluccas, Francisco Vieira, mentions as early as 1558 that ‘his death would have been a blessing for the Christians and the end of Islam in the region’ (DM, vol. 1, p. 239). More specifically, these documents provide key insights into the process of dividing the vast region, with its many islands, into Muslim and Christian areas. There are many places where the spread and spirit of Islam is related to foreigners, mostly Arabs ‘from Mecca’ and Javanese. Religious preachers and functionaries are called cacizes and are identified only by their function and not given proper names, in contrast to major rulers and their family. Reports on local developments are not restricted to the centres of the four ‘states’ and the island of Ambon, but often also refer to minor villages. For example, on the small island of Haruku, one of the northern villages, Hatuhaha (present-day Rohomoni), is identified several times as the home of apostate Christians, which has become the Muslim enemy of the more faithful Christian community of Oma to the south. The people of Oma even bribed the people of Hatuhaha to allow them to be left to practise their Christian faith in peace (DM,

422

jesuit makasar documents and the documenta malucensia

vol. 1, pp. 348, 454, 610). Haruku is mentioned in more than ten reports between 1562 and 1605. Many more examples of similar local histories are presented in the documents. The visibility of Christianity is quite often expressed in terms of the presence of crosses in public places, erected before churches were built. In petty wars between villages, the burning or destruction of these crosses was considered the hallmark of Muslim victory (DM, vol. 1, pp. 471, 490, 619). By the 16th century, a small section of Makassar was home to a Portuguese community. After the fall of Malacca to the Dutch in 1641, this community quickly expanded to number 3,000 people. Because of the official conversion of Makassar to Islam in 1605, no conversions to Christianity were allowed, but there were occasional signs of mutual appreciation. The most famous ruler of the Sultanate of Makassar was Karaeng Pattingalloang, who served from 1639 to 1654. The learned Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes spent five months in Makassar from December 1646 on his way from Macao to Rome. He wrote in detail and positively about Karaeng, who spoke excellent Portuguese and had a good knowledge of the Christian faith and history. He had supported the Portuguese from Malacca by providing a refuge in Makassar, and on occasion he attended their religious ceremonies. Karaeng always spoke respectfully of the pope and the saints and, according to de Rhodes, he ‘could easily be taken for a Portuguese Catholic’. He even wrote that ‘he lived as a Christian and had only one wife’ ( JMD, pp. 95-8). De Rhodes was impressed by his library, which contained many Western books, mostly on mathematics. However, another report (of 1665) mentions that he was severe with Muslim converts to Christianity and had applied the death sentence ( JMD, p. 201). Significance In a region where the race for supremacy between Islam and Christianity was still ongoing, and the religious identity of many places not fully established, this series of documents provides a unique record. Prior to the arrival of Islam, the fragmented world of the islands, many larger, others very small, had already been gathered into the rival groups of the siwa (union of nine), headed by Tidore, and the lima (union of five), headed by Ternate. In time, the latter came to be viewed as the more orthodox Muslims, while the no less devout Muslim Tidore headed the more varied union of ‘nine’, where the majority of the Christians were found. The division of this vast region between Muslims (living mainly in the northern parts of many islands) and Christians (often in

jesuit makasar documents and the documenta malucensia

423

the southern parts) took its final form in the 17th century. These documents add much to our understanding of this unique pattern of MuslimChristian relations. Anthropologist Chris van Fraassen has examined the division between siwa and lima and, in his 1987 dissertation made extensive use of the Documenta Malucensia to trace the conversion to either Islam or Christianity of many villages (Van Fraassen, ‘Ternate’, vol. 2, pp. 495-500). We should not be misled by the positive interpretation of stable and sometimes harmonious relations between the Muslim and Christian communities in the many scattered villages that is given in some studies (see, for example, Bartels, ‘Guarding the invisible mountain’). In the 16th and 17th centuries, there were many problems, attacks and small wars, as portrayed not only in the Documenta Malucensia, but also in the works of Rijali (Historie van Hitu) and Livinus Bor (Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn). Publications Details of the archives where MSS are held are given with each document in the following collections: A. da Silva Rego, Documentação para a historia das missões do padroado portugûes do Oriente India, 12 vols, Lisbon, 1947-58 A. Basílio de Sá, Documentação para o história das missões do padroado portugûes do Oriente Insulindia, Lisbon, 1955, vol. 2 J. Wicki, Documenta Indica, 14 vols, Rome, 1948-79 H. Jacobs, Documenta Malucensia, 3 vols, Rome, 1974-84 H. Jacobs, The Jesuit Makasar documents (1615-1682), Rome, 1988 Studies H.E. Niemeijer and T. Van den End, Bronnen betreffende Kerk en School in de gouvernementen Ambon, Ternate en Banda ten tijde van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 1605-1791, The Hague, 2015 K. Steenbrink, Catholics in independent Indonesia 1945-2010, Leiden, 2015 A. Azra, ‘1530-1670. A race between Islam and Christianity?’, in J. Aritonang and K. Steenbrink (eds), A history of Christianity in Indonesia, Leiden, 2008, 9-21 Ridjali, Historie van Hitu. Een Ambonse geschiedenis uit de zeventiende eeuw, ed. H. Straver, C. van Fraassen and J. van der Putten, Utrecht, 2004 A. Heuken, Be my witness to the end of the earth! The Catholic Church in Indonesia before the 19th century, Jakarta, 2002

424

jesuit makasar documents and the documenta malucensia

H. Niemeijer, ‘Agama Kumpeni? Ternate en de protestantisering van de Noord-Molukken en Noord-Sulawesi 1627-1795’, in H. Schutte (ed.), Het Indisch Sion. De Gereformeerde kerk onder de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, Hilversum, 2002, 147-76 K. Steenbrink, ‘Interpretations of Christian-Muslim violence in the Moluccas’, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 11 (2001) 64-91 L.Y. Andaya, The world of Maluku. Eastern Indonesia in the early modern period, Honolulu, 1993 J. Villiers, ‘Jesuits in Moro, 1546-1571’, Modern Asian Studies 22 (1988) 593-606 C.F. van Fraassen, ‘Ternate, de Molukken en de Indonesische Archipel’, Leiden, 1987, vol. 2, pp. 495-500 (PhD Diss. University of Leiden) J. Villiers, ‘De un caminho gemhar almas a fazenda. Motives of Portuguese expansion in eastern Indonesia in the sixteenth century’, Terrae Incognitae 14 (1982) 23-39 H. Jacobs, ‘Ambon as a Portuguese and Catholic town, 1576-1605’, Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 41 (1985) 1-17 Y.B. Mangunwijaya, Ikan-ikan Hiu, Ido, Homa [Sharks, tuna and sprat], Jakarta, 1983 D. Bartels, ‘Guarding the invisible mountain. Intervillage alliances, religious syncretism and ethnic identity among Ambonese Christians and Moslems in the Moluccas’, Ithaca NY, 1978 (PhD Diss. Cornell University) G. Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, sein Leben und seine Zeit, vol. 2, in two parts, Asien und Indonesien 1541-1549, Freiburg, 1963-71 B.J.J. Visser, Onder de Compagnie. Geschiedenis der Katholieke missie van Nederlandsch-Indië, 1600-1800, Batavia, 1934 C. Wessels SJ, De geschiedenis der R.K. missie in Amboina, 1546-1605, Nijmegen, 1926 (Indonesian trans. in M. Muskens (ed.), Sejarah Gereja Katolik Indonesia, vol. 1, Jakarta, 1973) B.J.J. Visser, Onder Portugeesch-Spaansche vlag. De katholieke missie van Indonesië, 1511-1605, Amsterdam, 1925 Livinus Bor, Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn als superintendent over d’oosterse gewesten oorlogaftig ten eind gebracht, Delft: Arnold Bon, 1663 Karel Steenbrink

Ferdinand Verbiest Nan Huairen, Ferdinando Verbiest, Ferdinandus Verbiest Date of Birth 1623 Place of Birth Pitthem, Belgium Date of Death 1688 Place of Death Beijing

Biography

Ferdinand Verbiest was a Belgian Jesuit. He twice attempted to embark on missions to South America, but on both occasions was refused permission by the Spanish. Deciding to travel to China instead, he arrived in Macau in 1658. He then worked in Xian, before moving to Beijing in order to work alongside Johann Adam Schall in the Imperial Observatory. During the trial of Schall and the other Christian members of the Imperial Observatory, he was placed under house arrest and, because of Schall’s ailing health, he represented his superior at court. He was released from house arrest in 1669, when the tide had turned on the Jesuits’ opponents. Thereafter, he successfully sought to restore Schall’s reputation, and was himself appointed to a position in the Imperial Observatory (1670) to amend the calendar, becoming in the process a close advisor to the imperial family. Having first been a missionary who had assisted Schall, he later became the head Jesuit astronomer in China. In 1677, he was appointed to the position of vice-provincial. A number of texts deserve mention for their relevance to the astronomical controversy and, therefore, to their indirect bearing on Christian-Muslim relations but, being scientific works, these are not given extensive treatment here. In 1668, or shortly afterwards, Verbiest published Qin ding xin li ce yan ji lue (or simply Ce yan ji lue), which records the investigation by the emperor into the Yang-Wu calendrical calculations. The majority of the text explores Wu’s calendrical errors, but it also records conversations between Verbiest and the emperor, as well as edicts promulgated by the emperor punishing Wu for his errors. Attacks on the Muslim calendar, and on Wu and Yang directly, appear to be divorced from concerns of religious identities, and are instead grounded in contemporaneous science, the personalities of the Jesuits’ opponents (real or imagined), and the state of opposition itself.

426

ferdinand verbiest

Verbiest’s 1669 Bu de yi bian (not to be confused with Lodovico Buglio’s work of the same title) sought to refute Yang’s calendrical errors rather than his anti-Christian treatises. Like Verbiest’s Qin ding xin li ce yan ji lue, the text therefore lacks direct references to Islam and Muslims, although Christian-Muslim conflict is at its heart. Verbiest regards Yang’s veneration of old calendrical methods as resulting directly in the execution of the five Chinese Christian members of the Imperial Observatory. Similarly, others of Verbiest’s texts – especially Wang zhan bian (1669), Wang ze bian (1669), Wang tui ji xiong bian (1669) and Xi chao ding an (early 1670s) – that sought to address Yang and his followers’ arguments, do not address Islam directly. This may indicate either an assumption that the religious identity of Jesuit opponents is common knowledge, or that the defining of these people as opponents was of greater importance than defining them in terms of their religious identity. Like Qin ding xin li ce yan ji lue, these texts are descriptive, apologetic and propagandistic in nature. They deal with scientific concerns and criticism in the areas of divination, geomancy and the calendar, whilst Xi chao ding an provides a description of the rebuilding of European astronomy in China after the controversy. These texts are polemical in their opposition to the Jesuits’ opponents, but not with regard to a particular religion. The rare, and technically anonymous – although probably written by Verbiest – Ci xian wen da (1678) focuses on a conversation between Verbiest and two of his students about whether or not he should accept promotion in the Imperial Observatory. Verbiest argued that an official position would reduce the time he could spend on spiritual matters, a concern which perhaps has its origins in Jesuit, Chinese and Muslim criticisms of Schall’s acceptance of an official position. The students, on the other hand, argued that involvement in material affairs did not compromise involvement in the spiritual and moreover that, because the fallout of the astronomical controversy spearheaded by Yang had not yet fully abated, promotion was a means to further defend and restore the position of Christianity and Western astronomy. Yang is described in negative terms as an enemy of Western sciences. Given Verbiest’s style in his other compositions, it unlikely that Muslims are explicitly referred to as such; rather, as in his other work, it is Muslim officials (in this case Yang) who are attacked. From available commentaries, it appears that the text is apologetic and descriptive in nature. Together with Lodovico Buglio (Li Leisi) and Gabriel de Magalhães (An Wensi), Verbiest produced Yu lan xi fang yao ji (or Xi fang yao ji) in



ferdinand verbiest

427

1669. The first pages give a geographical description of Asia, noting the existence of Hui hui (Muslim or Uyghur) lands. The authors also note various Muslim lands further afield, which are described as consisting largely of wilderness. The text is descriptive and lacks overt value judgement.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Qin ding xin li ce yan ji lue, 1668/1669 or shortly thereafter (the original exists in a number of different forms, at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome, BNP and Österreichische Nationalbibliothek). Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, BNP and Getty Research Institute have made online versions of the text available: http://digital.onb. ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ43214606 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btv1b90062908 and https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri. ark:/13960/t2m62db3n Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Bu de yi bian, 1669 (repr. in Wu Xiangxiang [ed.], Tian zhu jiao dong chu an wen xian, Taipei: Xue sheng shu ju, 1965, pp. 333-470; and in Zhou Erfang, Ming mo Qing chu tian zhu jiao shi wen xian cong bian, Beijing: Beijing tu shu guan chu ban she, 2001, pp. 53590). The original MS is in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and BNP. Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Lodovico Buglio (Li Leisi) and Gabriel de Magalhães (An Wensi), Xi fang yao ji, 1669 (repr. in Huang Xingtao [ed.], Ming Qing zhi ji xi xue wen ben: 50 Zhong zhong chong wen xian hui bian, vol. 2, Beijing: Zhong hua shu ju, 2013, pp. 830-8). Original MSS exist at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Bibloteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, BNP, and Fujen University. Digital versions have been made available by Waseda University and BNP: http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/search.php? cndbn=%90%BC%95%FB%97v%8BI, and http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b9006345s Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Wang tui ji xiong bian, 1669 (repr. in Nicolas Standaert [Zhong Mingdan], Ad Dudink [Du Dingke] and Nathalie Monnet [Meng Xi] [eds], Faguo guo jia tu shu guan Ming Qing tian zhu jiao wen xian, vol. 16, Taipei: Ricci Institute, 2009, pp. 287-336). MSS are kept at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Capitular, Toledo, and BNP.

428

ferdinand verbiest

Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Wang ze bian, 1669 (repr. in Nicolas Standaert [Zhong Mingdan], Ad Dudink [Du Dingke] and Nathalie Monnet [Meng Xi] [eds], Faguo guo jia tu shu guan Ming Qing tian zhu jiao wen xian, vol. 16, Taipei: Ricci Insititute, 2009, pp. 261-85). Original MSS are at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Capitular and BNP. A digital version of the text has been made available by BNP: http:// gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9006289m Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Wang zhan bian, 1669 (repr. in Nicolas Standaert [Zhong Mingdan], Ad Dudink [Du Dingke] and Nathalie Monnet [Meng Xi] [eds], Faguo guo jia tu shu guan Ming Qing tian zhu jiao wen xian, vol. 16, Taipei: Ricci Insititute, 2009, pp. 337-75). Original MSS are at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and BNP. Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Xi chao ding an, after 1670 (There is a possibility that this was written by another author [the text is anonymous], and multiple versions of the text exist. It is reprinted in Wu Xiangxiang (ed.), Tian zhu jiao dong chu an wen xian, Taipei: Xue sheng shu ju, 1965, pp. 71-224). Original copies are found at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II and BNP. Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Ci xian wen da, 1678 (repr. in Nicolas Standaert [Zhong Mingdan] and Ad Dudink [Du Dingke] [eds], Ye su hui Luoma dang an guan Ming Qing tian zhu jiao wen xian, vol. 12, Taipei: Ricci Institute, 2002, pp. 369-78). A manuscript copy exists in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu. Secondary A. Dudink and N. Standaert, Chinese Christian Texts Database (CCT-Database), http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/sinologie/english/cct A. Chan, Chinese books and documents from the Jesuit Archives in Rome. A descriptive catalogue, London, 20152 C. Jami, The Emperor’s new mathematics. Western learning and imperial authority during the Kangxi reign (1662-1722), Oxford, 2012 D.E. Mungello, The great encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, Lanham MD, 2009 B.A. Elman, On their own terms. Science in China, 1550-1900, Cambridge MA, 2005 N. Golvers, Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese heaven. The composition of the astronomical corpus, its diffusion and reception in the European republic of letters, Leuven, 2003 C. Jami, P. Engelfriet and G. Blue (eds), Statecraft and intellectual renewal in late Ming China. The cross-cultural synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), Leiden, 2001



ferdinand verbiest

429

J.W. Witek, art. ‘Ferdinand Verbiest, 1623-1688’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Grand Rapids MI, 1998, http://www. bdcconline.net/en/stories/v/verbiest-ferdinand.php A.C. Ross, A vision betrayed. The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742, Maryknoll NY, 1994 J. Witek (ed.), Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688). Jesuit missionary, scientist, engineer and diplomat, Nettetal, 1994 L. Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jesuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552-1773, Shanghai, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 338-62

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Astronomia Europaea sub Imperatore Tartaro Sinico Cam Hy ex umbra appellato in lucem revocata, ‘European astronomy under the rule of the Tartar-Chinese Kangxi emperor. From darkness into light, an appeal revoked’ ‘The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest’ Date 1687 Original Language Latin Description In Astronomia Europaea, Verbiest gives an account of Yang and Wu’s trial and persecution, and the restoration of the Western calendar and astronomy. The text was edited by Philippe Couplet (Chinese: Bo Yingli, 162393), and is 136 pages in length. Written and compiled between 1679 and 1680, the work was transported by Couplet to Europe between 1681 and 1683, but was not published until 1687. Some of its sections were reworked from Verbiest’s 1674 Xin zhi yi xiang tu. Yang’s (here rendered Yangquangsenius) religion is not mentioned, but he is described as the most wicked adversary of the Jesuits and, elsewhere, as an imposter (ed. and trans. Golvers, p. 18). Wu (rendered Uming-huén) is positively described as a bold man, and a member of the Mahumetana secta. Here it is noted that Wu had previously falsely accused Schall (p. 3). In his account of the gnomon shadow test, used by the Kangxi emperor to determine the accuracy of European and Muslim astronomy, Verbiest refers to his opponents and their (Muslim) methods, and specifically to Wu’s (referred to here only by the term Mahumetanus) methodology (pp. 5-6). Verbiest writes that Wu was rash in speech, ignorant and inexperienced in astronomy,

430

ferdinand verbiest

and the creator of an inconsistent and contrary Sino-Arabic calendar (p. 12). Later he makes a fleeting reference to Muslim impositions on the emperor (p. 15). The majority of direct references are descriptive, noting, for instance, that a Muslim mathematical ‘social’ class existed (p. 22) or that the Sino-Arabic calendar was erroneous (p. 15). The majority of the text is scientific, providing records of observations and explanations of tools; in this sense, it is primarily a scientific work. Nevertheless, the sections that deal with Muslims and the astronomical controversy are historical, apologetic and propagandistic in genre, descriptions of a Jesuit victory for a European audience. Significance Whilst anti-Muslim in judgement, the text is not a polemic against Islam. It is only polemical in so far as it attacks the Jesuits’ opponents, but for the most part the religious identity of these adversaries is either assumed or not mentioned. As noted, terminologically Mahumetanus and its derivatives are used. Here a change in spelling is registered, with earlier texts using Mahometanus. Another set of key terms generally used in reference to the calendar is derived from the word Arabicus. It is therefore interesting to note the use here of both ethnic and religious terminological categories to refer to things Islamic or Muslim in origin or nature. This is also a feature of other texts from the period. Publications Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Xin zhi yi xiang tu, (s.l.) [China], 1674; btv1b9006301m (digitalised version available through BNF; repr. in N. Golvers and E. Nicolaidis, Ferdinand Verbiest and Jesuit science in 17th century China. An annotated edition and translation of the Constantinople manuscript, Athens, 2009, pp. 313-68) Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen), Astronomia Europaea sub Tartaro Sinico Cam Hy ex umbra appellato in lucem revocata, ed. P. Couplet (Bo Yingli), Dillingea: Joannis Caspari Bencard, 1687; VD17 12:642514F (digitalised version available through Universtätsbibliothek Augsburg) N. Golvers (trans.), The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (Dillingen, 1687). Text, translation, notes and commentaries, Leuven, 1993 Studies Chan, Chinese books and documents



ferdinand verbiest

431

A.K. Wardega and A. Vasconcelos de Saldanha, In the light and shadow of an emperor. Tomas Pereira, S.J. (1645-1708), the Kangxi emperor and the Jesuit mission in China, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012 M. Reed and P. Dematte (eds), China on paper. European and Chinese works from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, Los Angeles CA, 2011 Golvers, Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese heaven Golvers, The Astronomia Europaea D.F. Lach and E.J. van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. 3: A century of advance. Book Four: East Asia, Chicago IL, 1993, pp. 1678-9 J.L.E. Dreyer, ‘Instruments in the Old Observatory at Peking’, Copernicus: An International Journal of Astronomy 1 (1881) 134-8 James Harry Morris

Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China Biography

This entry deals with works by five authors who wrote in 17th-century China: Wu Mingxuan (Uming-huen), Antonio de Gouvea (He Dahua), Andrea-Giovanni Lubelli (Lu Tairan/Lu Ande), François de Rougemont (Lu Riman) and Ding Peng. Wu Mingxuan (17th century; precise dates unknown) was a Chinese Muslim astronomer whose family had served on the Muslim Astronomical Board and in other positions since the Yuan dynasty. Following charges brought against the Jesuits by Yang Guangxian, Wu was made head of the Muslim Astronomical Board. Antonio de Gouvea (Chinese: He Dahua, 1592-1677) was a Portuguese Jesuit who came to China in 1636 and remained there until his death in 1677, in Fuzhou. After studying Chinese in Macau, he spent the early part of his mission in Fukien and later undertook historical work preparing texts on Chinese history and the history of the Jesuits. Together with Andrea-Giovanni Lubelli, he published, in 1671, Innocentia victrix, sive Sententia comitiorum Imperij Sinici pro innocentia Christianae religionis, lata juridice per annum 1669. Andrea-Giovanni Lubelli (Chinese: Lu Tairan/Lu Ande, 1611-85) was an Italian Jesuit from Lecce, who died in Macau in 1685. He came to China in 1649 following his entry into the Society of Jesus in 1628. There is some debate amongst contemporary scholars regarding authorship of the text generally attributed to him, with some favouring the idea that it was in fact written by François de Rougemont. François de Rougemont (1624-76) arrived in Macau in 1658 for the purpose of evangelising in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Changshu and Guangzhou. He was exiled to Canton during the persecutions and published a number of catechisms in Chinese and an account of his exile. He died in Taicang, and was buried in Changzhou. Ding Peng (1622-86) was a Chinese Muslim poet and official of Uyghur descent who was born in Zhejiang province.



Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China

433

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary Jaijian Tang, Setting off from Macau. Essays on Jesuit history during the Ming and Qing dynasties, Leiden, 2016, p. 62 Qiong Zhang, Making the New World their own. Chinese encounters with Jesuit science in the Age of Discovery, Leiden, 2015 C. Jami, The Emperor’s new mathematics. Western learning and imperial authority during the Kangxi reign (1662-1722), Oxford, 2012 Z. Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad. A cultural history of Muslims in late imperial China, Cambridge MA, 2005 J. Sebes, art. ‘Lubelli, Andrea-Giovanni’, in C.E. O’Neill and J.M. Dominguez (eds), Diccionario historico de la Compania de Jesus, Madrid, 2001, vol. 3, p. 2432b N. Standaert, ed., Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 1: 635-1800, Leiden, 2001, p. 185 D.F. Lach and E.J. van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. 3. A century of advance, Book one: Trade, missions, literature, Chicago IL, 1998, p. 357 J.W. Witek, art. ‘Francois de Rougemont, 1624-1676’, in G.H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Grand Rapids MI, 1998; http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/r/rougemont-francois-de.php J. Dehergne, Repertoire des Jesuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800, Rome, 1973, pp. 115-16, n. 59

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China Date Second half of the 17th century Original Language Chinese and Latin Description This account focuses on texts written by Muslims and Christians that discuss the Muslim-Jesuit astronomical disputes in the 17th century. The texts written by Muslims tend to take an anti-Christian and sometimes polemical approach, whilst those by Christians, written for the most part after the Christian victory in the controversy, are generally apologetic or propagandistic in nature. Terminologically, the Muslim texts tend to use the common contemporaneous Chinese terms to refer to the Christians and their religion, terms that lack overt value judgment. It is the commentary within those texts that contains the judgment on Christianity. Similarly, the Jesuit texts written in Chinese also use the common, contemporaneous, neutral terms to refer to Islam and Muslims. When writing in Latin, however, the Jesuits tended to use terms related

434

jesuits and muslims in 17th-century china

to the Latin name Mahometanus, or terms that denoted an ethnicity. The latter illustrate that modern conceptions of religious identity had not yet developed, and that religious identities were understood to be inextricably linked to national or ethnic ones. In the Christian texts, however, the most striking feature appears to be the general divorce of religious identity from the controversy. Whilst there are fleeting references to the religious identity of the Jesuits’ opponents, they are treated first and foremost as opponents, and only secondly as Muslim. The following provides some background information to set these texts and their authors in context. Under the rule of Khubilai Khan (Chinese: Hubilie, r. 1260-94) the Muslim-controlled Office of Western Medicine (Chinese: Xi yu yi yao si) and the Muslim Astronomical Bureau (Chinese: Hui hui si tian jian) were established in 1263 and 1271, respectively. In 1292, two Muslim pharmaceutical bureaus (Chinese: Hui hui yao wu yuan) were established, in Dadu and Shangdu, and were brought under the control of the Broadening Benevolence Office (Chinese: Guang hui si), the renamed Office of Western Medicine, in 1322. Muslim scholars related to the Astronomical Bureau were also involved in the fields of mathematics and cartography. Following the establishment of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the Muslim Astronomical Bureau continued to function alongside traditional Chinese bureaus; its members were employed in calendrical reform, and they continued the translation and publication of Muslim texts. Under the Ming dynasty, Muslims also continued to publish Muslim medical and other scientific texts. Nevertheless, Muslim science remained peripheral, having little effect on Chinese methods, which were kept separate from it. Following his arrival in China in 1581, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (Chinese: Li Madou, 1552-1610), with the help of Chinese collaborators in 1584 printed his first world map (a Chinese work entitled Yu di shan hai quan tu) using European cartographical knowledge. He published further maps throughout the late 16th century, the most famous being his 1602 Kun yu wan guo quan tu, also known as the Mappa mundi, which was created with the assistance of Li Zhizao (1565-1612). Ricci continued this work alongside mathematical and astronomical pieces until his death. Through establishing himself as a scholar congruent with Confucian expectations in this and other works, he assured the possibility for further Jesuits to contribute to the exchange of European scientific ideas with the Chinese. However, as the 17th century commenced, Muslim scholars continued to retain their prominent positions, although both the Chinese and Muslim sciences were in a state of decline and there



Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China

435

was a dire need for calendrical reform. The Jesuits, who arrived at this time, thus encountered not only a Chinese interest in foreign learning, but indeed a need for it, and were thereby able to carve out for themselves both respect and status among the Chinese literati and court. The Chinese educated classes showed an interest in Western science and this created a unique situation, leading to a number of Jesuit missionaries entering the fields of mathematics and the natural sciences. This activity brought them into direct contact with Chinese Muslim scholars, which resulted in conflict. The Jesuits soon demonstrated the efficacy and superiority of European astronomical methods. However, Buddhist opposition to Christianity, personal animosities, opposition to Western sciences amongst a number of literati and Chinese astronomers, and a memorandum written by the Jesuits’ opponent Shen Que, led to the persecution of Christians and the Jesuit astronomers. Despite such setbacks, the Jesuits continued on the understanding that the Jesuit scientific project was essential to the work of evangelisation, grounded in Ricci’s assertion that propagating European science in China would build the Jesuits’ reputation, ease evangelisation and stabilise the mission. Eventually, in 1629, an imperial edict assigned to the Jesuits the task of reforming the calendar. This decision was influenced by the failure of Chinese and Muslim solar eclipse predictions, while Jesuit predictions had proved accurate. The new calendar was completed as early as 1634, but it was not until 1644 that debate on the validity of using a European calendar had subsided and, despite political upheavals, its use was imperially decreed from 1645 onwards. Further conflict between the Jesuits and Chinese Muslims continued, however. Charges were brought by members of the Muslim Astronomical Bureau, which had been disbanded in 1657. Several secondary sources note that a report or petition made to the emperor by Wu Mingxuan in 1657, which accused the Jesuit calendar of inaccuracy, was investigated and found to be groundless. The emperor’s leniency meant that Wu’s life was spared, although the Muslim Astronomical Board was closed as a result (see Zhang, Following the steps, p. 26; Jami, Emperor’s new mathematics, p. 41). The anti-Jesuit campaign was implemented by Wu and Yang Guangxian (1597-1669), an opportunistic Muslim scholar and astronomer who had not held a position in the bureau. Yang published a series of texts attacking both Christianity and, later, the Astronomical Bureau. Whilst it is thought that Yang’s writings preserve some of Wu’s ideas and build upon his arguments, it appears that none of Wu’s writings have survived.

436

jesuits and muslims in 17th-century china

As a result of the charges, the Jesuits in Beijing and a number of associated astronomers were arrested in 1664 and missionaries throughout China were called to the capital to await a ruling. In April the following year, the Ministry of Rites decided that the Jesuits were guilty of Yang’s charges. In the event, three Chinese astronomers, as well as their relatives, and five other Chinese-Christian astronomers were executed; the Jesuits in Beijing remained under house arrest whilst all others were exiled to Canton and Macau. The Astronomical Bureau was taken over by Yang, Wu and a Manchu Director known as Mahu, and the Muslim Astronomical Bureau was re-established with Wu at its head. In 1671, the emperor allowed the missionaries to return to China, although they were never able to re-establish their prominence in the Bureau. Following the reprise, Antonio de Gouvea and Andrea-Giovanni Lubelli published their Innocentia victrix, sive sententia comitorum Imperij Sinici pro innocentia Christianae religionis, lata juridice per annum 1669 (Canton, 1671). The text consists of 45 folios, and is largely unique in that Chinese, Latin and Romanised Chinese are used alongside each other. The first section of the work propagates proudly the declaration of Jesuitical innocence in the astronomical controversy, with the focus on this victory rather than on Islam per se. Therefore, there is only a lone reference to ‘Mahometorum’, noting the destruction of their pride through the astronomical experimentation that crowned the Jesuit victors (p. 3). Rather than delineating between Muslim and non-Muslim opponents, the text more generally refers to the Jesuits’ enemies without specifying their religious identity. These enemies are often regarded as having fabricated claims against the Jesuits. The majority of the text is a compilation of memorials made after the defeat of Yang, and includes decrees by the emperor and Ministry of Rites permitting the Jesuits to return to mainland China and stating the innocence of Johann Adam Schall. The text is primarily descriptive and propagandistic, but also has apologetic elements. That it is written in both Latin and Chinese suggests the intended readership was both Chinese and European, and therefore simultaneously a propaganda piece and an apology. Nicolas Standaert argues that modern evidence suggests that Gouvea and Lubelli were not in fact the authors, but that it is the product of François de Rougemont’s (1624-76) hand (Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, p. 185). Following the controversy, anti-Christian sentiment remained prominent for many years. In 1691, a preface that Ding Peng had composed was attached to a version of Mi Wanji’s Jiao kuan wie lun. This preface



Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China

437

illustrates some of the ongoing animosity between Muslims and Christians following the astronomical controversy. In the work, Ding Peng notes that the message brought by the first man Adam was distorted by his successors (presumably Jews and Christians) until the coming of Muḥammad. Ding Peng’s understanding is firmly grounded within a Confucian episteme in which Muḥammad is understood as having explained, clarified and spread the Dao of the sages (Benite, Dao of Muhammad, p. 173). Ding thereby directly connects Muḥammad to Confucius (p. 173). The text does not explicitly mention Christians, however, and their distortion of Adam’s message is only implied. Furthermore, although the text is in this loose sense anti-Christian, it is not polemical. Rather, it is a text seeking to aid Islam in enculturating into Chinese culture (or expressing this already established reality). Anti-Christian sentiments within it probably reflect the realities of inter-religious competition. Significance Latin texts generally use either terms related to the Latin Mahometanus or ethnic terminology, and the latter denotes previous understandings of religious identity as inextricably linked to national or ethnic identity. Nevertheless, the use of terms related to Mahometanus shows the development away from such conceptions, towards an idea of individual religious identity not present in earlier texts. As with other texts written in the period, it is interesting to note the almost complete absence of direct references by either Christians or Muslims to their opponents or rivals. The controversy itself was of little consequence to the Jesuits in the long term, as they were able to establish themselves as the victors. This long term insignificance of the event is marked in the paucity of writings. Publications Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Narratio breuis rerum à Societate in Regno magni Mogor gestarum’, in Joannes Oranus (ed.), Iaponica, Sinensia, Mogorana. Hoc est, de rebus apud eas gentes a patribus Societatis Jesu, ann. 1598 et 99 gestis, Liège, 1601; Jes. 676 (digitalised version available through Münchener Digita­ lisierungsZentrum)

438

jesuits and muslims in 17th-century china

Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Auuisi della missione del regno del gran Mogor’, in Gasparo Spitilli (ed.), Copia d’una breve relatione della Christianità di Giappone, del mese di marzo del M.D. XCVIII. insino ad Ottob. del medesimo anno, et della morte di Taicosama signore di detto regno, Rome, 1601; J.can.p. 149#Beibd.1 (digitalised version available through Münchener Digitalisie­ rungsZentrum) Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Historica relatio de missione ad regnum Magni Mogor’, in Johannes Busaeus (ed.), Recentissima de Amplissimo Regno Chinae. Item de statu rei Christianae apud magnum regem Mogor. Et de morte Taicosamae Iaponiorum monarchae, Mainz, 1601; ESlg/Jes. 331#Beibd.2 (digitalised version available through Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum) John Hay, De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores, Antwerp, 1605; U/10958 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digital Hispánica) John Hay, De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores, Tenri, 1977 Giulio Alenio (Ai Rulue) and Yang Tingyun, Zhi fang wai ji, Hangzhou, 1623 (repr. in Ye Nong (ed.), Ai Rulue han wen zhu shu quan ji, Guilin, 2011, vol. 1, pp. 17-78); G95.A52616 (digitalised version available through Library of Congress) Emmanuel Diaz, Wenceslas Pantaleo Kirwitzer and Nicolas Trigault, ‘Relatione delle cose più notabili scritte ne gli anni 1619, 1620 e 1621 dalla Cina: Al molto Reu’, in Christo P. Mutio Vitelleschi , Preposito generale della Compagnia di Giesu, Rome, 1624; Un 7633 (digitalised version available through Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) Giulio Alenio (Ai Rulue), Daxi Xitai Li xia nsheng xing ji, Minzhong: Jing jiao tang, 1630 (repr. in Ye Nong (ed.), Ai Rulue han wen zhu shu quan ji, Guilin, 2011, vol. 1, pp. 403-13) Giulio Alenio (Ai Rulue), Tian zhu jiang sheng chu xiang jing jie, Fuan, 1637 (repr. in Ye Nong (ed.), Ai Rulue han wen zhu shu quan ji, Guilin, 2011, vol. 2, pp. 95-111); Cod.sin. 23 (digitalised version available through Bayerische StaatsBibliothek) Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Narratio brevis rervm à Societate in regno Magni Mogor gestarum’, in Louis de Dieu (ed.), Historia s. Petri presice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate, Leiden, 1639



Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China

439

MS Rome, Archivio Storico de Congregazione de Propaganda Fide (ASCPF) – Fondo Scritture Referite nei Congressi (S.C.) India Orientali e Cina, vol. 1, 1623-74, fols 49-55, Nicolò Longobardo, ‘1641 missionary report’ Alexandre de Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions du P. Alexandre de Rhodes en la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, avec son retour en Europe par la Perse et l’Arménie, Paris, 1653 (repr. 1666, 1681, 1684); cb31206482k (digitalised versions available through BNF) Alexandre de Rhodes, Sommaire des diuers voyages et missions apostoliques du R.P. Alexandre de Rhodes, de la Compagnie de Iesus, à la Chine, & autres royaumes de l’Orient, auec son retour de la Chine à Rome, depuis l’année 1618 jusques à l’année 1653, Paris, 1653; Jes. 910 ax (digitalised version available through Münchener Digitalisie­ rungsZentrum) Alexandre Rhodes, Des Pater Alexander von Rhodes aus der Gesellschaft Jesu Missionsreisen in China, Tonkin, Cochinchina und anderen asiatischen Reichen, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1858 (German trans.); Up 5894 (digitalised version available through Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) François Pallu, Relation abrégée des missions et voyages des évêques françois envoyez aux royaumes de la Chine, Cochinchine, Toquin et Siam, Paris, 1668; (digitalised version from Lyons Public Library available through Google Books: https://books.google.at/books?id= ypCPZcOqT1AC) François Pallu, Breve e compendiosa relatione de viaggi di tre vescovi francesi, che da Papa Alessandro VII. furono mandati vicarij apostolici a i regni della Cina, Cocincina e Tonchino, Rome, 1669, (Italian trans.); (digitalised version from Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma available through Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/ books?id=NZdmAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA7&dq)

440

jesuits and muslims in 17th-century china

Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete, Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China: Descripcion breve de aquel imperio y exemplos raros de emperadores y magistrados del. Con narracion difusa de varios sucessos y cosas singulares de otros reynos, y diferentes navegaciones. Añadense los decretos pontificios y proposiciones calificadas en Roma para la mission Chinica; y una bula de N.M.S.P. Clemente X. en favor de los missionarios. Por el P. Maestro Fr. Domingo Fernandez Navarrete, cathedratico de prima del Colegio, y Universidad de S. Thomàs de Manila, missionario apostolico de la gran China, Prelado de los de su mission, y procurador general en la corte de Madrid de la provincia del Santo Rosario de Filipinas, orden de predicadores. Dedica su obra al serenissimo señor Don Ivan de Austria, Madrid, 1676; R/2012 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digital Hispánica) Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete, An account of the empire of China; historical, political, moral and religious. A short description of that empire, and notable examples of its emperors and ministers. Also, an ample relation of many remarkable passages, and things worth observing in other kingdoms, and several voyages. There are added, the decrees of popes, and propositions defined at Rome for the mission of China; and a bull of our most Holy Father Clement X., in favour of the missioners, London, 1732 (English trans); t2n58tf55 (digitalised version available through the Hathi Trust: https://babel.hathitrust. org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t2n58tf55;view=1up;seq=9) Philippe Avril, Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie entrepris pour découvrir un nouveau chemin à la Chine, Paris, 1692, repr. 1693; cb300423297 (digitalised version available through BNF) Philippe Avril, Travels into divers Parts of Europe and Asia undertaken by the French king’s order to discover a new way by land into China, London, 1693 (English trans.); Wing A4275 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Philippe Avril, Reize door verscheidene staten van Europa en Asia, trans. Henrick van Quellenburgh, Utrecht, 1694 (Dutch trans.); 123 O 4 (digitalised version available through EEB) Philippe Avril, Curieuse Reise, durch Unterschiedene Staaten in Europa und Asia, trans. Ludwig Friedrich Vischer, Hamburg, 1705 (German trans.); PPN157156419 (digitalised version available through Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum) L. Desbuquois, ‘Matthieu Ricci’, Revue d’histoire des missions 1 (1924) 52-70



Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China

441

B. Ibáñez, ‘Carta al P. Sebastián Rodriguez’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana missionum V. Las misiones franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 28-30 B. Ibáñez, ‘Relacion de mi nacimiento y vida hasta el dia y año presente de 1690’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana Missionum V. Las misiones franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 228-43 B. Ibáñez, ‘Historia y relacion escrita por el P. Fr. Jamie Tarín’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana missionum V. Las misiones franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 265-319 P. de Troia, Geografia dei paesi stranieri alla Cina. ‘Zhi fang wai ji’, Brescia, 2009 G. Criveller, Vita del maestro Ricci, Xitai del Grande Occidente, Brescia, 2010 G. Criveller, La vita Matteo Ricci scritta da Guilio Aleni (1630), Brescia, 2010 Studies A. Chan, Chinese books and documents from the Jesuit archives in Rome. A descriptive catalogue, London, 20152 Qiong Zhang, Making the New World their own Jami, Emperor’s new mathematics D.E. Mungello, The great encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, Lanham MD, 2009 Zhang Xiping, Following the steps of Matteo Ricci to China, trans. Ding Deshu and Ye Jinping, Beijing, 2006 Ben-Dor Benite, Dao of Muhammad Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 1. 635-1800, p. 185 M. Klaue, ‘Wider das Budeyi gelevgen oder scheitern einer ChristlichKonfuzianischen synthese in der apologetischen schrift Budeyi Bian (1665) des Jesuiten Ludovico Buglio’, Monumenta Serica 45 (1997) 101-259 Chu Pingyi, ‘Scientific dispute in the imperial court. The 1664 Calendar Case’, Chinese Science 14 (1997) 7-34 A. Udias, ‘Jesuit astronomers in Beijing, 1601-1805’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 35 (1994) 463-78 Zhu Weizheng, Coming out of the Middle Ages. Comparative reflections on China and the West, trans. R. Hayhoe, New York, 1990 C.R. Boxer, ‘Some Sino-European xylographic works 1662-1718’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 79 (1947) 199-215 James Harry Morris

Nicolaus de Graaff Date of Birth 18 August 1619 Place of Birth Alkmaar, Netherlands Date of Death Shortly before 14 October 1688 Place of Death Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands

Biography

Son of a seaman, Nicolaus de Graaff entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, Hoorn Chapter, as a chirurgijn, the lowest degree of medical worker, commonly connected to a barber’s shop. He made 16 voyages, from several months to several years long, visiting nearly the whole known world of the time: from Greenland to Brazil, Denmark and the Mediterranean, while his most extended voyages were to India and the East Indies as far as Macau and Taiwan. He married in 1647 and had three daughters and a son, none of whom survived him. In old age, he had a respectable position as burgomaster in the small town of Egmond aan Zee. In mid-1687, he ended his last voyage and probably spent the last year of his life editing his travel notes for a book that was published in 1701, more than a decade after his death. This book became quite popular, was reprinted several times, and was best known for its humorous descriptions of the newly rich ladies of Batavia, their lack of culture and morality, and the corruption that had crept into the Dutch East India Company. De Graaff was also known for his detailed and refined drawings. He served several times as a diplomat during some of his travels.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary M. Barend-van Haeften, Oost-Indië gespiegeld. Nicolaas de Graaff, een schrijvend chirurgijn in dienst vande VOC, Zutphen, 1992 M. Barend-van Haeften, ‘Nicolaas de Graaf: chirurgijn, spion, teken-, wis en meetkonstenaar’, Caert-Thresoor. Tijdschrift voor de Geschiedenis van de Kartografie in Nederland 9 (1990) 8-13 R. Nieuwenhuys, Oost-Indische Spiegel, Amsterdam, 1972, pp. 36-9 R. Nieuwenhuys, Van Roddelpraat en literatuur. Een keuze uit het werk van schrij­ vers uit het voormalig Nederlands-Indië, Amsterdam, 1965



nicolaus de graaff

443

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Reisen, ‘Travels’ Date Unknown; before 1688 Original Language Dutch Description The first 100 pages of this book (its full title is Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff, na de vier gedeelten des Werelds, als Asia, Africa, America en Europa, mitsgaders sijn Oostindische spiegel) contain brief and concise reports of de Graaff’s first 13 voyages. The following 130 pages cover his last three voyages. Oost-Indise spiegel (98 pages) is re-printed with new pagination in the same volume. On his first voyage, de Graaff arrived in Aceh, Sumatra, where he saw the ‘pagan pagodas, the Moorish temples and a big royal palace’. He witnessed the funeral service for Sultan Iskandar Thānī (died 15 February 1641), of which he gives an elaborate ­description. On his return to Europe, de Graaff called at Aden and also Jeddah, whence pilgrims departed for Mecca ‘where it is said that the great Turkish Prophet Mahomet is buried. Here the Persian, Moorish and Turkish pilgrims left us, because they arrive in great number to see the grave of Mahomet’ (p. 19). The narratives of his voyages give evidence of considerable variety encountered in his travels. During his fourth trip, he met a Dutch ship in the Mediterranean that had been taken by Turkish pirates, while on his fifth trip, to Brazil, he encountered problems with Portuguese pirates. There is never a dull moment in this eventful travelogue. A quite curious story about Smyrna relates that a drunken sailor asked to be circumcised. He was put on a donkey and taken round the town by a company of ‘young children, prostitutes and burglars, as a sign that a Christian was circumcised. But they considered it weird, because renegades have little respect, especially among the higher class.’ During his fourteenth voyage, he visited the court of Aurangzeb, was involved in a legal case, and undertook some medical work that was highly appreciated by the Muslim nobility. During his fifteenth trip, he visited Basra and made detailed drawings of the city plan. In the midst of his sixteenth voyage, he (or the bookseller of 1701) included a 30 page description of the imperial court of China, in fact taken from a book by J. Nieuhof that had been published in 1693 (this is deleted from the 1930 and 1976 editions).

444

nicolaus de graaff

In general, de Graaff includes little by way of general remarks on Islam or Muslims. Such observations as he makes are written in the easygoing way of a true world citizen. The section called the ‘East India mirror’ at the end of his work is more engaged, full of criticisms about the luxurious life-style and corruption of the European and Eurasian men and women of Batavia (now Jakarta), though it does not deal specifically with Muslims. Significance De Graaff is praised for his concise, humorous, detached and precise way of writing. Of the many subjects that he touches on, it is the corruption and decadent life in Batavia that has been most often quoted. For some (especially Beekman, Troubled pleasures, pp. 336, 355), this was a sign that the European society in the East Indies quickly lost its Dutch character and took on an easy-going Asian way of life. Here, religion was not important and religious differences were taken at face value. Thus, Islam was for de Graaff just another new and exotic culture, like Hinduism and Chinese religions. Publications Nicolaus de Graaff, Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff, na de vier gedeeltens des werelds, als Asia, Africa, America en Europa . . . Hier agter is by gevoegd d’Oost-Indise spiegel, Hoorn: Feyken Ryp, 1701 (repr. 1703, 1704, 1742); Getty research Images 298679 (digitalised version available through Getty Research Images) Nicolaus de Graaff, Voyages de Nicolas de Graaf aux Indes Orientales, Et en d’autres lieux de l’Asie. Avec une rélation curieuse de la ville de Batavia, et des moeurs et du commerce des Hollandais établis dans les Indes, Amsterdam: Jean Frederic Bernard, 1719 (French trans.); Gale U100537256 (digitalised version available through The making of the modern world) J.C.M. Warnsinck, Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaf gedaan naar alle gewesten des Werelds beginnende 1639 tot 1687 incluis, The Hague, 1930 (repr. 1976) M. Barend-van Haeften and H. Plekenpol, Nicolaas de Graaf, OostIndise spiegel, Leiden, 2010 Studies K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts, 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 1993



nicolaus de graaff

445

M. Barend-van Haeften, Oost-Indië gespiegeld. Nicolaas de Graaff, een schrijvend chirurgijn in dienst van de VOC, Zutphen, 1992 E.M. Beekman, Troubled pleasures. Dutch colonial literature from the East Indies, 1600-1950, Oxford, 1996 E. du Perron, De Muze van Jan Compagnie, Bandung, 1948, pp 111-17 Karel Steenbrink

Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China Biography

The Society of Jesus was founded in 1534 and given formal recognition in 1540. The Jesuit mission to Asia was intimately linked to the spread of the Portuguese who, in 1493, had gained from the pope exclusive rights to the East Indies and to the civil and religious administration over the lands they had there or were to discover. Portuguese traders visited China as early as in 1514, and the first ambassadors in 1517. However, plans to establish a permanent commercial and ecclesiastical presence did not reach fruition until 1557 and 1581, respectively. Despite the provision of exclusive rights to the missions in both China and Japan by Pope Gregory XIII in 1585, the joining of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in 1580 complicated matters. In China, it was not until 1633 that non-Jesuit organisations began to arrive. Amongst these were Franciscans, who were returning to the Chinese missionary field, having first visited in the 13th century, Dominicans and Augustinians, who had intermittently visited China in the 16th century. In the late 17th century, these orders were joined by the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (Paris Foreign Missions Society), which had been established in the late 1650s and early 1660s, as well as individual Protestant and Catholic visitors travelling to Asia for the purposes of trade and exploration. As with the missionaries to Japan, missionaries to China interacted with Muslims in a variety of ways and contexts, especially en route. In China, they interacted not only with Muslims amongst the general population, but also with a prominent Muslim elite, which had taken ancestral government roles since the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). This entry looks at the works of selected 17th-century Roman Catholic authors, including Emmanuelis Pignerio (dates unknown), Gasparo Spitilli (1560-1640), Johannes Busaeus (1547-1611, also known as Iohannes Busaeus, Johann Busaeus, Jean Busée, Joannes Busius, Jan Buys, Jean Buys and other variants), Joannes Oranus (1544-1603, also known as Jean d’Heur, Ioannes Oranus, Jan Oranus and Jean Oranus), John Hay (1546-1607), Giulio Alenio (1582-1649, also known as Giulio Aleni and Ai Rulue), Emmanuel Diaz (1574-1659, also known as Manuel Dias Jr. and Yang Manuo), Nicolò Longobardo (1559-1654, also known as



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

447

Nicholas Longobardi, Niccolo Longobardi, and Long Huamin), Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660), François Pallu (1626-84), Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete (1610-89), Buenaventura Ibáñez (1610-91), and Philippe Avril (1654-98).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary D.A. Madigan, ‘Global visions in contestation. Jesuits and Muslims in the age of empires’, in T. Banchoff and J. Casanova (eds), The Jesuits and globalization. Historical legacies and contemporary challenges, Washington DC, 2016, 69-91 J.W. O’Malley, Saints or devils incarnate? Studies in Jesuit history, Leiden, 2013 Hosaka Shuji, ‘Japan and the Gulf. A historical perspective of pre-oil relations’, Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies 4 (2011) 3-24 T. Worcester (ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Jesuits, Cambridge, 2008 J. Wright, The Jesuits. Missions, myths and histories, London, 2004 D. Alden, The making of an enterprise. The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its empire, and beyond, 1540-1750, Bloomington IN, 1996 J.W. O’Malley, The first Jesuits, Cambridge MA, 1993 S. Bayly, Saints, goddesses and kings. Muslims and Christians in South Indian society, 1700-1900, Cambridge, 1989 M. Foss, The founding of the Jesuits 1540, London, 1969 C. Hollis, A history of the Jesuits, London, 1968 C.R. Boxer, Four centuries of Portuguese expansion, 1415-1825. A succinct survey, Johannesburg, 1961 C.R. Boxer, The Christian century in Japan. 1549-1650, Manchester, 1951 E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London, 1931 H. Yule, Cathay and the way thither, London, 1866, vol. 2, pp. 529-96

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Jesuits and other Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China: Literature on Muslims and Islam Date 17th century Original Language Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish Description Emmanuelis Pignerio’s letter (Auuisi della missione del regno del gran Mogor) was included in a compilation of texts entitled Copia d’una breve

448

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

relatione della Christianità di Giappone, del mese di marzo del M.D. XCVIII. insino ad Ottob. del medesimo anno, et della morte di Taicosama signore di detto regno, translated into Italian (from Portuguese) and edited by Gasparo Spitilli (1560-1640) in 1601. That same year, the collection, including reports by Emmanuelis Pignerio, Pasio Francesco, Peter Gomez and others was translated into Latin by Johannes Busaeus (1547-1611), a Dutch Jesuit scholar who spent much of his career at the Jesuit College in Mainz after studying in Cologne, Mainz and Rome. Busaeus’s work, published in Mainz, is entitled Recentissima de Amplissimo Regno Chinae. Item de statu rei Christianae apud magnum regem Mogor. Et de morte Taicosamae Iaponiorum monarchae and, like its source, it includes reports from the Chinese and Japanese mission fields. Also in 1601, Joannes Oranus’s (1544-1603) Iaponica, Sinensia, Mogorana. Hoc est, de rebus apud eas gentes a Patribus Societatis Jesu, ann. 1598 et 99 gestis, was published in Liège. This compilation juxtaposed Pignerio’s letter (here entitled Narratio breuis rerum a Societate in Regno magni Mogor gestarum) with those from the East Asian mission field. The letters were also included in Historia s. Petri presice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate (1639) by the Protestant Louis de Dieu (1590-1642). These two letters by Pignerio were originally dispatched from Lahore (1598) and Agra (1599). They report on a conversation between the Mughal leadership and a Muslim merchant, as well as the circumstances of the mission more generally. The merchant described the country of Cathay (a term taken from the work of Marco Polo and from interactions with Arabs and Persians), and stated there were a large number of Christians, but he also noted the existence of Jews and Muslims. The Mughals responded by making known their desire for the king of Cathay to be converted to Islam. In other sections of the text, Muslims are treated primarily as targets of conversion and are viewed in negative terms, with their creed on occasion described as ‘evil’ and understood as encouraging immorality and criminality. The letters were of great historical significance for the missions in East Asia. They inspired debate as to the nature of Cathay and China between the missionaries in India, who believed that the places were separate, and the missionaries in China, who believed that they were the same. They were the cause of Bento de Góis’s mission to Cathay, and allowed the missionaries in China to affirm that there were indeed native Christians there. It is certainly pertinent to recognise that the impetus of such debates and the resultant changes to



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

449

European geographical and religious understandings was the missionaries’ own interactions with Muslims. Terminologically, the term Maurus (Moorish), and its derivatives, is used to refer to Muslims in Latin versions of the texts, although in the Spanish text the term Moro is used. The term Mahometanae is also used on occasion. The Spanish and two Latin texts also differ. John Hay (1546-1607) was a Scottish Jesuit scholar who worked in Toulon and Lorraine. His De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores, published in Antwerp in 1605, is a collection of missionary reports and letters, including Jerome Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio’s Narratio breuis rerum a societate in regno magni Mogor gestarum, copied from Joannes Oranus’s collection. Another text that referred to Islam, entitled Exemplum epistolae F. Francisci de Castro sacerdotis Societatis Jesu, ad P. Laurentium Xara ex hispanica lingua in latinam conversae, was also included. This text contains an account of the execution of the Jesuit Petrus Elcius in Morocco in 1580, which had also been included in some late 16th-century collections of missionary reports. Like the work of Spitilli, Busaeus and Oranus, these texts did not deal directly with the Chinese mission field, but were juxtaposed with reports about it. Giulio Alenio (1582-1649) was an Italian Jesuit missionary to China. In 1623, Alenio and Yang Tingyun published a geography entitled Zhi fang wai ji, under imperial commission. It was a continuation of the unfinished geography started by Diego de Pantoja and Sebatino de Uris (Chinese: Xiong Sanba, 1575-1620). Like Matteo Ricci’s Xi guo ji fa, Alenio’s work limits its exploration of Islamic lands in order to portray Christianity as the world’s prevalent religion. Moreover, like Ricci’s work Zhi fang wai ji, it was drawn upon by later Chinese Muslim and non-Muslim scholars as a source for their own works. Countries with predominantly Muslim populations are explored, but there is little mention of religion as such. Judea is given an extensive treatment, however, with the focus on biblical and Christian history, and so the contemporary reality that the region was predominantly Muslim is ignored. Despite efforts to avoid addressing Islam, Alenio notes, in reference to religion, that heterodoxy in foreign countries has led to infringements on European territory (quoted in Qiong, Making the New World, p. 318). His focus on a JudeoChristian Judea is also present in his Tian zhu jiang sheng chu xiang jing jie (1637). His biography of Ricci’s life, entitled Da xi Xitai Li xian sheng xing ji (1630), also includes a version of the story of Ricci’s conversation

450

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

with the Jew, Ai Tian, in which Muslims are discussed, and which also featured in Trigault and Ricci’s accounts. Emmanuel Diaz (1574-1659) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary to China. His Relatione delle cose più notabili scritte ne gli anni 1619, 1620 e 1621 dalla Cina was published in Rome in 1624, and includes the Italian version of Diaz’s Relatione dell’anno 1619. In this, Diaz writes that the Jesuits had found a mixture of religions in Henan province, including Islam. He notes that Muslims were held in high esteem, although the passage primarily concerns Christianity and Judaism in China. Islam is appended to this, and its minimalistic treatment, without any comment on its moral status, suggests that it does not hold importance for Diaz. Nicolò Longobardo (1559-1654) was a Sicilian Jesuit missionary to China who acted as the mission’s Superior General from 1610 to 1622. His 1641 missionary report (see Archivio Storico de Congregazione de Propaganda Fide (ASCP) – Fondo Scritture Referite nei Congressi (S.C.), India Orientali, Cina, vol. 1: 1623-74, fols 49-55), written in Portuguese, provides the earliest extensive treatment of interactions between the missionaries and Chinese Muslims. In this, Longobardo recounts the conversion of Zhu Yishou (baptismal name: Pedro), which he attributes to Zhu and his father’s years of interaction with the Jesuits and Portuguese. Zhu had believed that Islam was superior to Chinese religion, but following Longobardo’s victory during debates with Muslim leaders, Zhu embraced Catholicism. Longobardo attributes this victory to his adequate understanding of Islam and his debating partners’ lack of understanding of Christianity. (See Po-Chia Hsia, ‘Christian conversion’, pp. 282-3, for a description of the contents of the report.) Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660) was a French Jesuit missionary to Vietnam and China. In his Sommaire des diuers voyages et missions apostoliques du R.P. Alexandre de Rhodes, de la Compagnie de Iesus, à la Chine, & autres royaumes de l’Orient, auec son retour de la Chine à Rome, depuis l’année 1618 jusques à l’année 1653, he refers positively to a ‘civil’ Muslim with whom he regularly spoke about mathematics, but laments that the man would not accept baptism (p. 95). He refers to this Muslim again in his Divers voyages et missions du P. Alexandre de Rhodes en la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, avec son retour en Europe par la Perse et l’Arménie, published in the same year, where he notes the person’s fondness for the Portuguese and dislike of the Dutch (p. 295). In the same work, he again laments the fact that people in some areas of Asia are more apt to convert to Islam than to Christianity, as the Muslims arrived



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

451

there first (p. 295). He does not know whether to blame the poor reasoning of the people or the lack of zeal of the Christian missionaries, but he notes that in either case the Muslims were so well established they were able to repulse the Christians (p. 295). Because it is noteworthy to de Rhodes that he met a Muslim of good character, it can be understood that he normally felt that Muslims were not congenial. Within the text, however, any anti-Islam sentiment derives first and foremost from the desire to spread Christianity, and the understanding of Muslims as competitors with Christians in this regard. De Rhodes primarily uses the terms ‘Mahometan’, and ‘superstitions de Mahomet’. Buenaventura Ibáñez (1610-91) was a Franciscan missionary to China, where he was known as Wen Dula. He refers to Muslims in several of his letters, although such references are sparse. In Carta al P. Sebastián Rodriguez (1644), he makes brief mention of the Moorish manned ships in Siam (‘Carta al P. Sebastián Rodriguez’, p. 28). Historia y relacion escrita por el P. Fr. Jamie Tarín (1689) includes references to a conversation in which Islam and the punishment of Moors by God was discussed (p. 289). In Relacion de mi nacimiento y vida hasta el dia y año presente de 1690 (1690), he recounts being pursued by Moorish pirates during a voyage (p. 238). Ibáñez’s work takes an anti-Muslim approach, in which Muslims are described as belonging to an absurd or nonsensical sect (‘secta disparatada’) and are subject to the wrath of God because of their incorrect religious beliefs and practices. Terminologically, Ibáñez primarily uses the term Moro. François Pallu (1626-84) was a founding member of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris and a missionary to East Asia. He acted as bishop of Heliopolis and Vicar Apostolic of Tonkin, Laos, and an area of South China. In Relation abrégée des missions et voyages des Evêques françois envoyez aux royaumes de la Chine, Cochinchine, Toquin et Siam (1668), Pallu notes his worries about needing to use a Muslim vessel in order to travel between Siam and Tonkin. The tone of this lone passage is negative and anti-Islamic in sentiment. Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete (1610-89) was a Spanish Dominican missionary to the Philippines and China. In 1676, he published Tratados históricos, políticos, éticos y religiosos de la monarquia de China in Madrid. The text contains fleeting references to Islam, which reflect an anti-Islamic perspective in descriptive rather than polemical format. However, Islam lacks overt importance to the author and rarely features in the text. He generally uses the term Moro.

452

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

Philippe Avril was a Jesuit missionary who travelled to China by land. In 1692, he published Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie entrepris pour découvrir un nouveau chemin à la Chine, which was translated into English in 1693 and into Dutch in 1694. It contains sparse references to Muslims. Avril does, however, write of meeting a slave from ‘Tartary in Poland’ who was inclined towards Christianity (p. 196). Avril, who was able to communicate with the slave, was employed to explain Christianity to him (p. 196). The slave is referred to as a half-converted infidel, but he is viewed in positive terms nonetheless; his adherence to Islam is seen as the result of his place of birth rather than of his obstinacy (p. 196). The man is described as having a mild disposition and it is noted that he accepted baptism (p. 196). On several occasions, Avril laments Christian conversions to Islam. He also refers to religious debates with Turks, noting that it is erroneous to believe that Muslims do not debate or doubt their teachings, and that they do not desire other knowledge.

Illustration 11. Frontispiece of Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie, representing the range of peoples encountered by Avril



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

453

Terminologically, he uses the terms Turc and Mahometan with greatest frequency. As a general rule, Islam is rarely referred to directly in earlier texts. The sources primarily use national or ethnic terms such as Moor, Saracen, Arab, Turk or Kaffir, and their respective translations. This reflects the different understanding of religion and religious identity held by the authors. Religion is intimately linked to national identity. So, when an author uses the term ‘Arab’ or ‘Moor’ the reader is expected to understand that a part of that national identity is his adherence to Islam. Nevertheless, as the century progressed authors increasingly used the terms ‘Mohammedan’, ‘Law of Mohammed’, etc., utilising various spellings, to refer to Muslims and Islam. This suggests changing views on Islam and the nature of religious identity more generally. Significance For the Christian missionaries, Muslims could often provide an important source of geographical and social information. Nevertheless, the letters and documents examined here illustrate first and foremost a desire to shift the focus away from the important place of Muslims to the mission and in the contemporaneous world. The documents are marked by a tendency to accentuate the relative unimportance of Islam compared with Christianity, and when the intended audiences of a text are East Asians, it appears to create a conscious block to, or censoring of, the significance of Muslim existence, if not the very fact of it. None of this suggests that the missionaries were uninterested in Muslims and Islam; in fact, the scarcity of references and often silence on the topic almost contradictorily illustrates the interest with which the missionaries viewed Muslims, understanding them as rivals whose expansion they wanted to combat. Despite this, it must be noted that other concerns were generally of greater importance to the missionaries: whether the texts approach Islam from anti-Islamic, polemical, ‘neutral’ or positive stances, the scarcity of references to it is the common element. Islam and Muslims are often viewed in negative frames, but this does not mean that every author is a polemicist; rather Islam and its adherents are often ascribed redeeming features. Nevertheless, for the most part Islam is treated dismissively, as is to be expected from authors invested in an enterprise seeking to convert Muslims and reduce the expansion of Islam. Even in cases where a text appears to be seemingly neutral and lacking value judgment, this does not imply that the author or his intended readership did not understand the contents in anti-Islamic terms.

454

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

The majority of texts included in this entry are missionary histories, reports, or hagiographies. Other works are mainly concerned with Western learning; they include geographies, histories and scientific works. Missionary histories and reports were composed for both public and private European audiences; they sought to record information relating to the mission with a focus on conversion, the achievements of converts, their heroism and suffering. In situ, these texts were primarily religious works, only acquiring the status of ‘histories’ over time. They were selectively written, emphasising successes and avoiding reference to difficulties, in order to attempt to gain financial assistance and to edify their readers. As a result, myths could be created, or stories lacking an historical basis propagated. In the texts noted above, Muslims and Islam always formed something of a footnote to narratives primarily concerned with other things. They therefore had little bearing on Muslim-Christian relations in subsequent centuries, although they certainly reflect perceptions about, attitudes towards, and assessments of, Muslims by the Christian authors. All of the texts are important for the history of Christian missions to East Asia and this has been reflected in contemporary scholarship on the topic, which has generally explored Christianity and Islam in 17th-century China by way of comparing their efforts to accommodate to Chinese culture, rather than by exploring direct interaction between Muslims and Christians. Generally, the 17th-century texts deal with Islam and Muslims descriptively, albeit often taking an anti-Islamic stance; rarely are the works actively polemical – perhaps due to the non-proselytising nature of Islam in China, as some of the texts indicated, or perhaps due to Jesuit policies of accommodation. The primarily theological nature of these texts contributed to the prejudiced view of Islam and Muslims, grounded in an episteme that dichotomised Christendom on the one hand, and the lands of the barbarous and uncivilised on the other. Muslims, like other non-Christians with whom the missionaries came into contact, were conversion targets, their conversions the work of God, their rejection of Christianity grounded in heathen error. Such aspects were not absent from works on Western learning, as they were an important facet of the episteme that informed the perceptions of the authors of these texts. Nevertheless, as these types of text were concerned primarily with mundane rather than religious matters, anti-Islamic sentiment is less prominent than in the reports and histories mentioned above.



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

455

Perhaps of great significance is that the texts betray (although without acknowledgement) the fact that it was Muslims who corrected European geographical understandings of East Asia; such an admission cannot have been easy for scholars writing for European audiences. Further references to Muslims who assisted the religious orders or who were described as civilised, illustrate the slow turning away from the anti-Islamic polemical stance commonly held at the time, and perhaps shocked the texts’ readership. A second point of significance is that the texts mark the beginning of changes in European understandings of religious and national/ ethnic identities. At the dawn of the century, texts often used national or ethnic terminology to refer to Muslims but, although this continued throughout the period, authors increasingly began to use other terms that had a religious rather than ethnic connotation to describe the religion and its followers. Three general approaches seem to exist in the texts and they differ in the ferocity of their charges, or lack thereof, against Islam. First are the descriptive accounts that are generally devoid of overt anti-Islamic sentiment. These are seemingly neutral, if only because they lack negative or positive value judgments. Second are the mostly anti-Islamic accounts, which include negative descriptions or judgments, but may include positive assessments and do not attack Islam in its totality. Third are polemical texts, which are unrelenting in their anti-Islamism and where attacks on Islam and the characters of individual Muslims are a central feature of the author’s discourse. These three approaches are unsystematic, applying varyingly within the literature; an individual author may make seemingly neutral descriptions in one part of his text and attack Islam in another. Publications Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Narratio breuis rerum à Societate in Regno magni Mogor gestarum’, in Joannes Oranus (ed.), Iaponica, Sinensia, Mogorana. Hoc est, de rebus apud eas gentes a patribus Societatis Jesu, ann. 1598 et 99 gestis, Liege, 1601 (the original manuscript can be found at Sophia University, Toyo Bunko and the University of Tsukuba); JL-1601-KB2-249-853 (digitalised version available through Laures Virtual Rare Book Library)

456

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Auuisi della missione del regno del gran Mogor’, in Gasparo Spitilli (ed.), Copia d’una breve relatione della Christianità di Giappone, del mese di marzo del M.D. XCVIII. insino ad Ottob. del medesimo anno, et della morte di Taicosama signore di detto regno, Rome, 1601 (original manuscripts of the Rome publication exist at Sophia University, University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and the University of Tsukuba; copies of the Venice version exist at Sophia University, University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and the University of Tsukuba); JL-1601-KB4-251-149 (digitalised version of a 1951 facsimile held by Institutum Historicum S.I., Rome, available through Laures Virtual Rare Book Library) Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Historica relatio de missione ad Regnum Magni Mogor’, in Johannes Busaeus (ed.), Recentissima de Amplissimo Regno Chinae. Item de statu rei Christianae apud magnum regem Mogor. Et de morte Taicosamae Iaponiorum monarchae, Mainz, 1601 (original manuscripts exist in Sophia University, Kyoto University, Tenri University and the University of Tsukuba); JL-1601-KB5-252-150 (digitalised version available through Laures Virtual Rare Book Library) John Hay, De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores, Antwerp, 1605; U/10958 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digital Hispánica) John Hay, De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores, Tenri, 1977 Giulio Alenio (Ai Rulue) and Yang Tingyun, Zhi fang wai ji, Hangzhou, 1623 (repr. in Ye Nong [ed.], Ai Rulue han wen zhu shu quan ji, Guilin, 2011, vol. 1, pp. 17-78); WDL 227 (digitalised version available through World Digital Library, Library of Congress) Emmanuel Diaz, Wenceslas Pantaleo Kirwitzer and Nicolas Trigault, ‘Relatione delle cose più notabili scritte ne gli anni 1619, 1620 e 1621 dalla Cina: Al molto Reu’, in Christo P. Mutio Vitelleschi, Preposito generale della Compagnia di Giesu, Rome, 1624; PPN66577057 (digitalised version available through Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) Giulio Alenio (Ai Rulue), Da xi Xitai Li xian sheng xing ji, Minzhong: Jingjiao tang, 1630 (repr. in Ye Nong [ed.], Ai Rulue han wen zhu shu quan ji, Guilin, 2011, vol. 1, pp. 403-13; copies are kept at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, BNF, and Fujen University)



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

457

Giulio Alenio (Ai Rulue), Tian zhu jiang sheng chu xiang jing jie, Fuan, 1637 (repr. in Ye Nong [ed.], Ai Rulue han wen zhu shu quan ji, Guilin, 2011, vol. 2, pp. 95-111; copies are kept at Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Harvard University, and the Bodleian Library); BSB 00080038 (digitalised version available through Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) Hieronymus Xavier and Emmanuelis Pignerio, ‘Narratio brevis rervm à Societate in regno magni Mogor gestarum’, in Louis de Dieu (ed.), Historia s. Petri presice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate, Leiden, 1639 Nicolò Longobardo: MS Rome, Archivio Storico de Congregazione de Propaganda Fide (ASCPF) – Fondo Scritture Referite nei Congressi (S.C.) India Orientali e Cina, vol. 1, 1623-74, fols 49-55 (‘1641 missionary report’) Alexandre de Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions du P. Alexandre de Rhodes en la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, avec son retour en Europe par la Perse et l’Arménie, Paris, 1653 (repr. 1666, 1681, 1684); BNF31206482 (digitalised version available through BNF) Alexandre de Rhodes, Sommaire des diuers voyages et missions apostoliques du R.P. Alexandre de Rhodes, de la Compagnie de Iesus, à la Chine, & autres royaumes de l’Orient, auec son retour de la Chine à Rome, depuis l’année 1618 jusques à l’année 1653, Paris, 1653; BSB 10569724-3 (digitalised version available through Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) Alexandre Rhodes, Des Pater Alexander von Rhodes aus der Gesellschaft Jesu Missionsreisen in China, Tonkin, Cochinchina und anderen asiatischen Reichen, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1858 (German trans.); PPN631929746 (digitalised version available through Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) François Pallu, Relation abrégée des missions et voyages des Evêques françois envoyez aux royaumes de la Chine, Cochinchine, Toquin et Siam, Paris, 1668; SJ H 672/10 (digitalised version available through Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyons) François Pallu, Breve e compendiosa relatione de viaggi di tre vescovi francesi, che da Papa Alessandro VII. furono mandati vicarij apostolici a i regni della Cina, Cocincina e Tonchino, Rome, 1669; AC10178605 (digitalised version available through Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

458

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete, Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China. Descripcion breve de aquel imperio y exemplos raros de emperadores y magistrados del. Con narracion difusa de varios sucessos y cosas singulares de otros reynos, y diferentes navegaciones. Añadense los decretos pontificios y proposiciones calificadas en Roma para la mission Chinica; y una bula de N.M.S.P. Clemente X. en favor de los missionarios. Por el P. Maestro Fr. Domingo Fernandez Navarrete, cathedratico de prima del Colegio, y Universidad de S. Thomàs de Manila, missionario apostolico de la gran China, Prelado de los de su mission, y procurador general en la corte de Madrid de la provincia del Santo Rosario de Filipinas, orden de predicadores. Dedica su obra al serenissimo señor Don Ivan de Austria, Madrid, 1676; R/2012 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digitale Hispánica) Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete, An account of the empire of China; historical, political, moral and religious. A short description of that empire, and notable examples of its emperors and ministers. Also, an ample relation of many remarkable passages, and things worth observing in other kingdoms, and several voyages. There are added, the decrees of popes, and propositions defined at Rome for the mission of China; and a bull of our most Holy Father Clement X., in favour of the missioners, London, 1732 (English trans); 13960 (digitalised version available through the Hathi Trust) Philippe Avril, Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie entrepris pour découvrir un nouveau chemin à la Chine, Paris, 1692 (repr. 1693); btv1b86082793 (digitalised version available through BNF) Philippe Avril, Travels into divers parts of Europe and Asia undertaken by the French king’s order to discover a new way by land into China, London, 1693 (English trans.); Wing A4275 (digitalised version available through EEBO) Philippe Avril, Reize door verscheidene staten van Europa en Asia, trans. Henrick van Quellenburgh, Utrecht, 1694 (Dutch trans.) Philippe Avril, Curieuse Reise, durch Unterschiedene Staaten In Europa Und Asia, trans. Ludwig Friedrich Vischer, Hamburg, 1705 (German trans.); hbz:6:1-12069 (digitalised version available through Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum and ULB Münster) L. Desbuquois, ‘Matthieu Ricci’, Revue d’Histoire des Missions 1 (1924) 52-70



Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China

459

B. Ibáñez, ‘Carta al P. Sebastián Rodriguez’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana missionum V. Las misiones Franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 28-30 B. Ibáñez, ‘Relacion de mi nacimiento y vida hasta el dia y año presente de 1690’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana missionum V. Las misiones Franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 228-43 B. Ibáñez, ‘Historia y relacion escrita por el P. Fr. Jamie Tarín’, in S. Alcobendas (ed.), Bibliotheca hispana missionum V. Las misiones Franciscanas en China, Madrid, 1933, 265-319 P. de Troia, Geografia dei paesi stranieri alla Cina. ‘Zhi fang wai ji’, Brescia, 2009 G. Criveller, Vita del maestro Ricci, Xitai del Grande Occidente, Brescia, 2010 G. Criveller, La vita Matteo Ricci scritta da Guilio Aleni (1630), Brescia, 2010 Studies Madigan, ‘Global visions in contestation’ A. Chan, Chinese books and documents from the Jesuit Archives in Rome. A descriptive catalogue, London, 2015 Qiong Zhang, Making the New World their own. Chinese encounters with Jesuit science in the Age of Discovery, Leiden, 2015 Z. Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Like the Hebrews in Spain”. The Jesuit encounter with Muslims in China and the problem of cultural change’, Al-Qanṭara 36 (2015) 503-30 G. Wiessala, European studies in Asia. Contours of a discipline, London, 2014 T. Alberts, Conflict and conversion. Catholicism in Southeast Asia, 15001700, Oxford, 2013 Z. Ben-Dor Benite, ‘ “Western gods meet in the East”. Shapes and contexts of the Muslim-Jesuit dialogue in early modern China’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55 (2011) 517-46 G.G. Stroumsa, A new science. The discovery of religion in the Age of Reason, Cambridge MA, 2010 R. Po-Chia Hsia, ‘Christian conversion in late Ming China. Niccolo Longobardo and Shandong’, The Medieval History Journal 12 (2009) 275-301 Z. Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad. A cultural history of Muslims in late imperial China, Cambridge MA, 2005

460

roman catholic orders in 17th-century china

M. Lackner and N. Vittinghoff (eds), Mapping meanings. The field of new learning in late Qing China, Leiden, 2004 M. Leone, Religious conversion and identity. The semiotic analysis of texts, London, 2004 P.C. Phan, Mission and catechesis. Alexandre de Rhodes and inculturation in seventeenth-century Vietnam, Maryknoll NY, 1998 D. Alden, The making of an enterprise. The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its empire, and beyond, 1540-1750, Stanford CA, 1996 S. Bayly, Saints, goddesses and kings. Muslims and Christians in South Indian society, 1700-1900, Cambridge, 1989 Johannes Laures, Kirishitan Bunko. A manual of books and documents on the early Christian mission in Japan, Tokyo, 19573 R. Löwenthal, ‘The early Jews in China. A supplementary bibliography’, Folklore Studies 5 (1946) 353-98 E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London, 1931 James Harry Morris

Dagh-register Dagh-register van ‘tgene hier in Batavia ‘tsedert Primo January 1624 gepasseert is gelyck mede verscheyden tydingen van andere Qartieren becomen et cetera ‘Daily account of what has taken place here in Batavia since 1 January 1624, as well as some reports about other settlements’ Date 1624-1799 Original Language Dutch Description On 6 December 1621, Governor General Jan Pieterszoon Coen ordered all settlements of the VOC to keep a diary (Dagh-register) of important events. This was to include reports about local politics and trade rivals, especially the British but also the French, Danish, Portuguese, Gujarati and others. An account was entered for every month, detailing the ships that had arrived in the main Dutch harbour of Batavia (present-day Jakarta), listing their cargo and detailing personal arrivals and departures. Also included was important international news from Europe and Asia, brought by crew members of the visiting ships, and information sent by visiting ambassadors or resident VOC officials from regional settlements. Essentially, the accounts contained a wealth of information about court politics and general economic affairs, and the most important letters from Asian rulers were quoted in Dutch translation. The oldest entry dates from 1624, with reports continuing until the end of the VOC’s activities in 1799. Up to the year 1750, the diary contains valuable information pertaining to the entire VOC network, from Arabia, Persia, the coastal regions of India, Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago and as far as China and Japan. But after 1750, the Dagh-register declines in quality and becomes little more than a list of ships entering and leaving the harbour of Batavia. In 1887, J.A. van de Chijs, keeper of the archives in Batavia, began publishing the reports that he was able to locate. Between 1887 and 1931, the existing copies of the yearly reports between 1624 and 1682 were published (in 31 volumes). Some years totalled a few hundred pages, others

462

dagh-register

were much longer. The longest is for the year 1682, published in two volumes, totalling some 1,500 pages. Due to the difficulties in using the archival copies of the Dagh-register, this examination will be restricted to the printed series for the years 1624-82. Some of the original manuscripts are in Jakarta, others are in The Hague, and several years are missing altogether. The year 1643 is only available in part in an archive in Karlsruhe, Germany. Another important series produced by the Batavia office of the VOC is the Generale Missiven series. These comprise annual reports written by the Governor General in Batavia and the Council of the Indies. They were sometimes included in the Dagh-register, and they are available in printed form for the period 1610-1725 (Coolhaas, Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal). They also provide a wealth of information on Asian-Dutch relations of the time, some of which is not found elsewhere. A further literary genre is represented by the treaties between the VOC and Asian rulers. These interesting treaties often include a religious paragraph, usually an agreement that both parties will not engage in proselytism, will not accept converts, and will send back converts or renegades, as determined by the original religious conviction of the people involved. Many of these treaties are available in Dutch translation in the Dagh-register. A total of 1,198 of these treaties have also been collected separately in the six volumes of Corpus Diplomaticum NeerlandoIndicum. Some examples of these treaties are provided in the entry on Frederick de Houtman. Given its character as a collection of monthly accounts from individual towns, the Dagh-register is best used in conjunction with other sources. However, some of the material included in it provides unique information for present-day scholars about the social and political developments of the time, including the relationship of Muslim rulers and their societies to the Christian Dutch. This can best be demonstrated by two examples. The first concerns the position of Shaykh al-Islām, the highest Muslim official at the court of Aceh in the 17th century. In 1637, a Gujarati scholar of Malay-Arab ancestry, Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī, was appointed to this position by the female Sultana, Tāj al-ʿĀlam. He launched an attack on mystical doctrines as taught by the Acehnese teachers Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī and Ḥamza Fanṣūrī, and had their books burnt in front of the great mosque of the capital. On 8 August 1643, the VOC representative Pieter Sourij noted in his personal diary that a ‘Moorish bishop’ (al-Rānīrī) had caused much



dagh-register

463

upheaval. On 22 August, he wrote that the council of the sultanate had debated al-Rānīrī’s continued appointment, and that a ‘new bishop’ by the name of Suffel Radjal (to be read as Sayf al-Rijāl), whose teacher was killed on al-Rānīrī’s orders, was to become the new Shaykh al-Islām instead. Sayf al-Rijāl was a scholar from Minangkabau (West Sumatra), and as a result of his appointment al-Rānīrī lost his position and had to leave Aceh. An account of this debate is found only in the archived personal papers (in Germany) of an important VOC official. However, a subsequent development in this power struggle is found exclusively in the Dagh-register. In 1651, the governor general of the time, Joan Maetsuyker, claimed in a report that the ‘highest pope’ (oppersten paep), Sayf al-Rijāl, had a love affair with the sultana. This affair ended with the dismissal and confiscation of the property of the man who had spread the rumours, the laksamana or head of the armed forces, who was also described as strongly anti-Dutch. Two years later, in 1653, the Dagh-register mentions that, during another armed coup in the palace, the high priest (grooten priester) was killed. Although the Dutch were often only observers of the political and religious conflicts of the court, they occasionally did get involved (as in this case). It is clear that some factions were strongly opposed to them, while others were connected to them and even sought arms and soldiers from them (see Ito, ‘Why did Nuruddin ar-Raniri leave Aceh?’, and Khan, ‘What happened to Sayf al-Rijal?’). A much more detailed account of religious-political conflict concerns the Sultanate of Banten in the period preceding the battle for supreme power between the old Sultan Abū l-Fataḥ (also called ‘the great’ or Ageng) and his son, Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Qahhār (also known as Prince Haji because he had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca). The young prince sought support from the Dutch against his much more popular father. However, with the aid of the stronger Dutch army (led in battle by an Ambonese, Captain Joncker), Prince Haji emerged as victor and his father was sent into exile, as was his religious advisor, Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī. The sultan was imprisoned in Batavia, but Shaykh Yūsuf was sent to Ceylon and later to Cape Town, South Africa, because he remained popular and therefore dangerous. Nearly half of the 1682 account of the Dagh-register is devoted to this complicated war that ended the cosmopolitan power of the Banten Sultanate, which was subsequently forced to follow the directives of the VOC and recognise its monopoly in the spice trade. The case of Banten proved to be exemplary to the Dutch colonial power.

464

dagh-register

At times of internal conflict in its realm, the Dutch often sided with the weaker party, helping it to win the conflict, but in return the weak party had to transfer real power to its Dutch ally. The degree of religiosity of the party in question was rarely a significant factor in the process (on Banten, see Colombijn, ‘Foreign influence’, and ‘De westeuropese invloed op Banten’; Guillot, Sultanate of Banten; Talens, ‘Ritual power’). Not all matters discussed in the Dagh-register concerned major developments; many of its shorter entries relate to daily affairs. In early September 1682, the Sultan of Ternate was deposed and sent into exile in Batavia, but was later forgiven and rehabilitated. The birth of his son was celebrated with a ceremony in which a coconut tree was planted on the outskirts of Batavia. Dutch officials accompanied the ruler, preceded by soldiers playing in a brass band. Candles and incense were used during the planting of the tree, while prayers were recited by a Moorse paap (‘Moorish pope’). Unfortunately, the baby died two weeks later. Dutch officials participated in the burial, after which they drank Rhine wine with the mourning father. This religious practice evidently did not follow strict orthodox Muslim lines; instead, we see a ceremony that mixed Islamic and local beliefs in which the non-Muslims easily joined in the rituals of the Muslims, along with some elements introduced by the Christian foreigners (Dagh-register 1692, pp. 1106-8 and 1137-8). A similar observation concerns the presence of VOC officials at ceremonies in palaces of local rulers, where they also joined mixed civil-religious festivities (see Talens, ‘Ritual power’, for the installation of a new sultan). The treaties included in the Dagh-register regularly concluded with reports of a dual ceremony in which the sultan would take an oath on the Bible and the Qur’an. A third ceremony would sometimes follow that involved drinking water that was poured over a keris or dagger considered to have magic qualities. This latter practice reflects a pre-Islamic pagan ritual with a clear intrinsic meaning (Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam, pp. 66-9). Throughout the Dagh-register, there are mentions of the ‘renegades’, namely Christian converts who assumed important roles in Asian societies as translators and mediators, in spite of the formal ban on such people in official treaties. Significance The Dagh-register provides an unrivalled series of insights into relations between the Dutch representatives of the VOC and local Muslim rulers. While these relations were rarely religious in nature, the accounts about



dagh-register

465

them include invaluable details of life in Indonesian Muslim societies in the 17th century, and also of the attitudes of Muslims and Christians towards one another. Much more material is available on this region. The National Archives in Jakarta contain about two and a half kilometres of VOC archives, covering only the period 1600-1800 (the Corts Foundation is funding a programme that will make much of this material available through direct access via its website: https://sejarah-nusantara.anri.go.id/). Of course, most of this material is about trade and economic matters, but there is also much about the sensitive power relations between the early colonialists and the Muslim states of Southeast Asia. Publications Daghregister gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant paserende daer ter plaetse als over geheel Nederlandts-India, ed. J.A. van der Chijs (for 1640-92), and J.E. Heeres (for 1624-9), 31 vols, The Hague, 1887-1928 W.P. Coolhaas et al. (eds), Generale Missiven van GouverneursGeneraal en Raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, 13 vols, The Hague, 1960-2007 Studies Sher Banu A.L. Khan, ‘What happened to Sayf al-Rijal?’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land en Volkenkunde 168 (2012) 100-11 P. Carey, The Power of prophecy. Prince Dipanegara and the end of an old order in Java, 1785-1855, Leiden, 2007 L. Blussé, ‘Eerste vingeroefeningen in handelsdiplomatie te Batavia. Pieter de Carpentier en het Chinese gezantschap van 1624’, in E. Locher-Scholten and P. Rietbergen (eds), Hof en handel. Aziatische vorsten en de VOC 1620-1720, Leiden, 2004, 15-34 W. Remmelink, The Chinese War and the collapse of the Javanese state, 1725-1743, Leiden, 1994 K. Steenbrink, Dutch colonialism and Indonesian Islam. Contacts and conflicts 1596-1950, Amsterdam, 1993 J. Talens, ‘Ritual power. The installation of a king in Banten, West Java, in 1691’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land en Volkenkunde 149 (1993) 333-55 F. Colombijn, ‘De westeuropese invloed op Banten in de zeventiende eeuw. Een studie op het raakvlak van geschiedenis en culturele antropologie’, in H.J.M. Claessens (ed.), Kolonisatie en straatsvorming buiten Europa, Groningen, 1993, 51-66 C. Guillot, The sultanate of Banten, Jakarta, 1990

466

dagh-register

J. Talens, Een feodale samenleving in koloniaal vaarwater. Staatsvorming, koloniale expansie en economische ontwikkeling in Banten, West-Java (1600-1750), Hilversum, 1990 F. Colombijn, ‘Foreign influence on the state of Banten, 1596-1682’, Indonesia Circle 50 (1989) 19-30 W.P. Coolhaas, A critical survey of studies on Dutch colonial history, The Hague, 1980 T. Ito, ‘Why did Nuruddin ar-Raniri leave Aceh in 1054 A.H.?’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 489-91 M.C. Ricklefs, Modern Javanese historical tradition. A study of an original Kartasura chronicle and related materials, London, 1978 T.G. Pigeaud, Islamic states in Java, 1500-1700. A summary, bibliography and index, The Hague, 1976 C. Skinner (ed. and trans.), Sjair Perang Mengkasar. The rhymed chronicle of the Macassar War, by Entji‘ Amin, The Hague, 1963 J.E. Heeres and F.W. Stapel, Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando Indicum, 6 vols, The Hague, 1907-55 Karel Steenbrink

Africa and the Americas

Map 4. West Africa

Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Nahrawālī Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Nahrawālī al-Makkī Date of Birth 1511/12 Place of Birth Gujarat or Lahore Date of Death 1582/3 (or 1583/4; according to some sources 1580/1) Place of Death Mecca

Biography

Many aspects of the biography of Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Nahrawālī (sometimes erroneously spelt al-Nahrawānī) al-Hindī al-Makkī are still unclear, despite the relative abundance of sources that mention him. According to these, he was born in either Gujarat or Lahore in 1511/12. His family was a branch of the Āl Quṭbī clan, the descendants of Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAdanī, a learned man from Aden who settled in the town of Nahrawāla in Gujarat (possibly present-day Patan) during the 14th century. He first took the nisba al-Nahrawālī (al-Hindī) as a reference to his family’s main centre of residence. He then acquired the nisba al-Makkī when, before puberty, he moved with his parents to Mecca, where he spent most of his life. Quṭb al-Dīn received his initial education from his father. He managed to master the Persian language before leaving India for Mecca, where he studied under some of the city’s most outstanding scholars. In 1536, he travelled to Egypt to pursue his education. That same year, he travelled to Istanbul for the first time together with Āsaf Khān, vizier of Bahādur Shāh of Gujarat, who was seeking Ottoman support against Portuguese expansion in the Indian Ocean. In 1558, he again went to the Ottoman capital on behalf of the ruler of Mecca to request the dismissal of the head of the Ottoman troops in the city (or the governor of Medina, according to other sources). On both occasions, Quṭb al-Dīn not only carried out his political missions (meeting Sultan Süleyman in person) but also discussed various theological and legal issues. His knowledge of Turkish endeared him to the Ottoman statesmen whom he regularly accompanied on their ḥajj or ʿumra to the holy city. Moreover, his linguistic skills allowed him to act as mediator between the sharīf rulers of Mecca and the Ottoman Empire. His closeness to the imperial

470

quṭb al-dīn muḥammad al-nahrawālī

administrators paved the way for his career as a teacher and public official at various madrasas, first al-Ashrafiyya then al-Kanbayātiyya and eventually the Sulaymāniyya. At an unknown date, he was named muftī of Mecca and was active in this capacity until his death in 1582/3 or 1583/4 (or according to some sources, 1580/1). Quṭb al-Dīn, who was remembered as a passionate collector of books, is credited with a huge and varied literary production, which is still largely unexplored. From the scanty data available, however, it appears that his fame is almost exclusively based on three historiographical works devoted to the two holy cities of Islam and the Ottoman conquest of Yemen: Al-iʿlām bi-aʿlām bayt (or balad) Allāh al-ḥarām, finished in 1577 and dedicated to Murād III, containing a description of Mecca and its history with special focus on the measures taken by the Ottoman sultans to improve the urban infrastructure and facilities for inhabitants and pilgrims; Tāʾrīkh al-Madīna, an abridged history of Medina including a section on the biography of Muḥammad; and Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī. Quṭb al-Dīn’s works, and especially the historiographical ones, became highly appreciated in the 17th century, particularly in the central lands of the Ottoman Empire where, also in Turkish translation, they were used as reliable sources of information for both Sunnī-Zaydī and Sunnī-Christian relations in the Yemen and the western Mediterranean.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī l-kutub wa-l-funūn, Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, [s.d.], vol. 1, pp. 126, 239-40, vol. 2, pp. 1098, 1298, 1413, 1832 Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Khifājī, Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ wa-zahrat al-ḥayāt, [Istanbul], al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿĀmira, 1856-7, pp. 198-203 Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī l-Shawkānī, Al-badr al-ṭāliʿ bi-maḥāsin man baʿd al-qarn al-sābiʿ, Cairo, 1929, vol. 2, pp. 57-8 Najm al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazzī, Al-kawākib al-sāʾira bi-aʿyān al-miʾa al-ʿāshira, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1945-58, vol. 3, pp. 40-3 ʿAbd al-Ḥayy ibn ʿAbd al-Kabīr al-Kattānī, Fihrist al-fahāris wa-athbāt, Beirut, 1982, pp. 944-61 Shihāb al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥayy ibn Aḥmad ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab, Beirut, 1993, vol. 10, pp. 617-19 ʿAbd al-Qādir al-ʿAydarus, Al-nūr al-sāfir ʿan akhbār al-qarn al-ʿāshir, Beirut, 2001, pp. 499-505



quṭb al-dīn muḥammad al-nahrawālī

471

Secondary Eymen Fuâd Seyyid, art. ‘Nehrevâlî’, in Türkiye diyanet vakfi Islam ansiklopedisi, vol. 32, Istanbul, 2006, pp. 547-8 R. Blackburn, Journey to the Sublime Porte. The Arabic memoir of a Sharifian agent’s diplomatic mission to the Ottoman imperial court in the era of Suleyman the Magnificent, Beirut-Würzburg, 2005 (Beiruter Texte und Studien 109) Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane. Maṣādir ta⁠ʾrīkh al-Yaman fī l-ʿaṣr al-islāmī, Cairo, 1974, pp. 213-15 J.R. Blackburn, art. ‘al-Nahrawālī’, EI2 C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, Berlin, 1902, vol. 2, pp. 381-2, Leiden, 1938, Supp. 2, p. 514-15

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī, ‘Yemeni lightning, on the Ottoman conquest’ Al-futūḥāt al-ʿUthmāniyya li-l-aqṭār al-Yamāniyya, ‘Lightning over Yemen. A history of the Ottoman campaign 1569-71’ Date 1573 Original Language Arabic Description Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī is a historiographical work written by Quṭb al-Dīn at the request of Koca Sinān Pasha (Albanian: Sinan Pasha Topoyani; c. 1520-96), the Ottoman conqueror of Yemen (Fātiḥ-i Yaman), to describe the victorious expansion of the sultan’s rule in southern Arabia and Sinān Pasha’s own military exploits. The text runs to 541 pages in Ḥamad al-Ghāsir’s 1967 edition. Quṭb al-Dīn completed a first version of the text in 1573, dedicating it to Sultan Selim II. This work comprised four chapters and an appendix. After a partial revision, the scope and extent of which have yet to be assessed (de Sacy, ‘La foudre du Yémen’, pp. 414-55), he published a second version dedicated to Sultan Murād III, son and successor of Selim II. In this final version, Al-barq is divided in three chapters (bāb) and a relatively short conclusive section (al-khātima). Each of these four parts is made up of several sections ( faṣl).

472

quṭb al-dīn muḥammad al-nahrawālī

There is little information about the transmission of Al-barq, but it is preserved in a substantial number of manuscripts. The many manuscripts found in Turkish libraries clearly reflect the close political associations between the author and the Ottoman authorities. In Europe, there are copies of the version dedicated to Sultan Selim II in collections in Gotha, Copenhagen, Paris and Vienna. Manuscripts of the second and final versions exist in Oxford, Leiden, Madrid and Paris. The text of Al-barq was first made known to the scholarly world by Silvestre de Sacy, who described it on the basis of four Parisian manuscripts and produced a detailed summary of its contents (de Sacy, ‘La foudre du Yémen’). In 1892, David Lopez published the sections of the Arabic text dealing with Portuguese expansion in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, together with a Portuguese translation, introduction and notes, based on the seven Paris manuscripts, and a codex that had originally been in the collection of Armand Pierre Caussin de Perceval, but was then acquired by Esteves Pereira in Lisbon. The full Arabic text of the second version of Al-barq was published in Riyadh by Ḥamād al-Jāsir in 1967 under the title Ghazawāt al-Jarākisa wa-l-atrāk fī janūb bilād al-jazīra al-musammā Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī. This edition is based on four manuscripts, but apart from the first and fourth of them, no clear bibliographical references are given by the editor as to their location. The real philological value of Ḥamād al-Jāsir’s edition should thus be closely scrutinised. This edition formed the basis for Clive K. Smith’s 2002 translation of the third chapter of Al-barq into English. The text starts with the history of Yemen from the beginning of the 15th century (10th century AH) until the end of 1570/1 (ch. 1). The preparation and execution of the first Ottoman expedition to Yemen and the following conquest of the country under Süleyman the Magnificent are described in ch. 2. Ch. 3 is the pivotal centre of the book, recounting in great detail the curbing of the Yemeni rebels and the reconquest of Yemen by the Ottoman army under the leadership of Sinān Pasha. The final section recounts the further development of the military career of Sinān Pasha, who, after returning from his victory in Yemen, was sent to Tunisia. There, under his command, the Ottoman fleet and ground troops defeated the army of John of Austria at the battle of La Goleta (24 August-3 September 1574). As a source for his description of the Ottoman conquest of Yemen, Quṭb al-Dīn expressly acknowledges making use of the Turkish historical



quṭb al-dīn muḥammad al-nahrawālī

473

poem by Muṣṭafā Bek al-Ramūzī Tarih-i feth-i Yemen, a copy of which Sinān Pasha gave him in person as an encouragement to write his Arabic text. On the other hand, no direct source is mentioned for his description of the battle of La Goleta and the subsequent establishment of Ottoman rule in Tunisia. Quṭb al-Dīn admits that this section of his work is a kind of summarised appendix, an excursus that he is unable to furnish in any detail, partly because of the vast distance between him and the theatre of events. Being essentially a text designed to extol the military deeds of Sinān Pasha and his Ottoman troops, Al-barq is only partially interested in religious dispute and polemics. However, Quṭb al-Dīn clearly and repeatedly states that the Ottoman conquest of Yemen is to be interpreted as the victory of the pure Sunna of the Prophet over degenerate Zaydī Islam. The Ottomans are the instruments by which true Islam eventually defeats the heretics. The Christian Portuguese (Franks) are explicitly referred to only a dozen times in the text. When they are mentioned, they are always accompanied by a derogatory epithet such as ‘the cursed Franks’ (al-Faranj al-malāʿīn, e.g. al-Jāsir, Ghazawāt al-Jarākisa, pp. 233-4). Moreover, the Portuguese fleet is said to have tried (in vain) from the sea to protect the Zaydī forces occupying Aden (Smith, Lightning over Yemen, pp. 41-2); deviant Muslims are therefore presented as almost naturally allied with the Christians. In addition, while writing about Özdemir Pasha, a predecessor of Sinān Pasha in Yemen, the author extols his heroic deeds in Ethiopia, where he fought a brave jihad against the local Christians, destroying ‘the flags of the cross and the idols’ (alawiyyat al-ṣalīb wa-l-aṣnām, al-Jāsir, Ghazawāt al-Jarākisa, pp. 119-20). Furthermore, in describing the Ottoman conquest of Tunis, Quṭb al-Dīn does not enter into any particular theological discussion and does not dwell on the religious characteristics of the enemy. The fight is described briefly as a sincere jihad led by the righteous Ottoman state against a group of Christians (ṭāʾifat al-Naṣārā al-Ifranj). The author appears to consider this as sufficient religious characterisation of the military events he recounts. In the detail he provides about the operations and the battle, Quṭb al-Dīn repeats common negative epithets and curses in reference to the Christians (e.g. dammarahum Allāh; may God destroy them!), and the bad local Muslims such as the Hafṣid ruler Aḥmad ibn Ḥasan, because they have cooperated with the worshippers of the cross (ʿubbād al-ṣalīb) to preserve their power and oppress the true believers (al-Jāsir, Ghazawāt

474

quṭb al-dīn muḥammad al-nahrawālī

al-Jarākisa, pp. 464-5). The victory of the Ottoman troops led by Sinān Pasha is represented as the triumph of Islam, supported by God. The spoils of the battle at La Goleta (goods and slaves) are taken to Istanbul to gladden the sultan and the entire city with a kind of triumphal parade (al-Jāsir, Ghazawāt al-Jarākisa, pp. 474-5). Significance Al-barq attracted the attention of European scholars mainly because of a passage that alludes to the fact that the Portuguese fleet was shown the best route to India by a drunken Arab pilot identified by Quṭb al-Dīn as the famous Arab navigator Aḥmad ibn Mājid (Lopes, Extractos da historia, pp. 39-40, 60; al-Jāsir, Ghazawāt al-Jarākisa, pp. 18-19). This identification has been accepted by some historians (Ferrand, ‘Le pilote arabe’, Maqbul Ahmad in EI2 s.v. Ibn al-Mādjid) but rejected by others (­Tibbets, Arab navigation, pp. 9-11; Subrahmanyam, The career and legend, pp. 121-8), who surmise that the profoundly Ottoman-phile Quṭb al-Dīn may have wished to cast doubt in the minds of his readers of a possible collaboration between some (impious) Arabs and the Portuguese. Publications Al-barq has come down in a substantial number of MSS, though the history of its transmission is still uncertain. For lists of MSS, see C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Leiden, 1937-49, vol. 2, p. 382, Supp. 2, p. 515; Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane, p. 215. In addition, see: MS Istanbul, İstanbul Millet Kütüphanesi Ali Emiri Koleksiyonu – 34 Ae Tarih 657, Telhîs-i Berki’l-Yemânî. Yemen tarihi (1676-7; abridged Turkish trans.) MS Istanbul, Āshir Efendi – 632 (Turkish trans.) Silvestre de Sacy, ‘ “La foudre du Yémen”, ou conquête du Yémen par les Othomans’, Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale 4 (1788) 412-504 (a description of the text according to four Paris manuscripts: BNF 1649 [A.F. 826]; BNF 1644 [A.F. 826A]; BNF 1650 ([A.F. 827]; BNF 1647 [A.F. 828]; and a detailed summary of its contents) D. Lopes, Extractos da historia da conquista do Yaman pelos Othmanos, Lisbon, 1892 (the sections of the Arabic text dealing with the Portuguese expansion in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, together with a Portuguese trans.)



quṭb al-dīn muḥammad al-nahrawālī

475

Ḥamād al-Jāsir (ed.), Ghazawāt al-Jarākisa wa-l-Atrāk fī janūb bilād al-Jazīra al-musammā Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī, Riyadh, 1967 (full Arabic text of the second version) C.K. Smith, ‘Kawkabān, the key to Sinān Pasha’s campaign in the Yemen (March 1569-March 1571)’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 32 (2002) 287-94 (English trans. of ch. 3, using Ḥamād al-Jāsir’s edition) C.K. Smith, (trans.) Lightning over Yemen. A history of the Ottoman Campaign (1569-71). Being a translation from the Arabic of part III of al-Barq al-Yamānī . . ., London, 2002 (based on Ḥamād al-Jāsir’s edition) Studies S. Subrahmanyam, The career and legend of Vasco da Gama, Cambridge, 1997 Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane, pp. 214-15 G.R. Tibbets, Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean before the coming of the Portuguese, being a translation of Kitāb al-fawāʾid fī uṣūl al-baḥr wa-l-qawāʾid of Aḥmad ibn Mājid al-Najdī, London, 1971 G. Ferrand, ‘Le pilote arabe de Vasco da Gama et les instructions nautiques arabes au XVe siècle’, Annales de Géographie 172 (1922) 289-307 Alessandro Gori

André Álvares de Almada Date of Birth About 1550 Place of Birth Santiago Island, Cape Verde Archipelago Date of Death About 1624 or before Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Little is known about the life of André Álvares de Almada. He was a Knight of the Order of Christ, and a military commander and merchant from the Island of Santiago in the Cape Verde Archipelago. He probably lived between the middle of the 16th century and the first quarter of the 17th century. His Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde is one of the most important sources for the history of West Africa in the modern period. André was the son of Cipriano Álvares de Almada. His father probably settled in Cape Verde in the mid-16th century and married a mulatto woman, the daughter of one of the local landowners. The Cape Verde Islands had been settled by the Portuguese for almost a century when André was born; they were not inhabited when the Portuguese arrived. In the first decades of occupation, the small population of pioneering Portuguese settlers was outnumbered by African slaves and descendants of freedmen, often of mixed extraction. Santiago Island held a central place in the early Atlantic slave trade, which contributed to the emergence of an Afro-Portuguese society in Cape Verde. As a young man, André went several times to the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (as the present region of Senegambia to Sierra Leone was then known). He probably first visited the region in the 1570s, accompanying his father on a business trip. In the two most complete manuscript copies of his Tratado breve, the first references to journeys to Guinea date back to 1570 in the Lisbon manuscript and to 1576 in the Oporto manuscript. In 1578, the Cape Verdeans attempted to establish a colony on the Guinea Coast. But this failed when António Velho Tinoco, who should have become the first Captain of Sierra Leone, died in the battle of Alcazarquivir alongside King Sebastian. After this setback, they agreed to obtain royal approval for their undertaking, and in 1580 Almada was chosen to go to Lisbon for this purpose.



andré álvares de almada

477

Almada is next heard of when his treatise was written, probably in Lisbon in 1592. Then, in 1598, he was made a Knight of the Order of Christ. According to a reference in the Archives of Simancas (‘André Álvares de Almada cavaleiro que foi do hábito de Cristo’, AGS, Secretaria Provinciales, Libro 1467, fols 262-265, 1624), he probably died a little before 1624.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary André Álvares de Almada, Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde, Porto, 1841 Secondary P.E. Hair (ed. and trans.), André Álvares de Almada, An interim and makeshift edition of André Álvares de Almada’s Brief Treatise of the Rivers of Guinea, being an English translation of a variorum text of Tratado Breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde (c. 1594) organized by the late Avelino Teixeira da Mota, together with incomplete annotation. Translation, a brief [. . .] and notes on chapters 13-19 by P.E.H. Hair and notes on chapters 1-6 by Jean Boulègue, issued personally, for the use of scholars, from the Department of History, University of Liverpool, July 1984, vol. 1, pp. 1-12 A. Brásio (ed. and trans.), André Álvares de Almada. Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde, leitura, introdução e notas de António Brásio, Lisbon, 1964, pp. ix-xvi

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Tratado breve dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo-Verde, ‘Brief treatise on the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde’ Date c. 1594 Original Language Portuguese Description The Tratado breve dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo-Verde, which in Brásio’s edition comes to 150 pages, is perhaps the richest description of the people who inhabited the coast of Senegambia in the 16th and 17th centuries. The text is clearly connected to the project to colonise Cape Verde in Sierra Leone, and it presents in great detail the complex geographical distribution of the peoples of the Guinea Coast from Senegal to Sierra Leone, together with their political and social organisation and their customs and beliefs. This is why it is a valuable source for the study of

478

andré álvares de almada

Christian-Muslim relations in the region, even though this was not the main focus of the merchant Almada’s story (unlike the account of the Jesuit Manuel Álvares). According to Paul Hair (André Álvares de Almada), Almada’s account does not dwell on the Europeans in the life of the Cape Verde Islands, or the rivalries between the main settlement and outlying settlements, or rivalries within the state and the church or between the two, or rivalries within the local Cape Verde government. However, he makes up for this by being exceptionally informative about the African peoples, and particularly the inhabitants of the Cape Verde Islands as part of the coastal economy, and the contours of the mainland societies with which they were in contact. This information is derived partly from personal experience and observation, and partly from the accumulated experience and common knowledge of the Cape Verde trading community. As Almada writes in the prologue, although he himself knows about the region, he has taken information and advice from others as well, something not difficult to find in Santiago Island at the time. As a trader, Almada provides information first about the commercial aspects of European relations with African trading networks, and then about the internal economies of the African peoples involved, their cultural traditions and even religious aspects of their lives, although this was not immediately obvious. He also gives detailed information about local African ethnography, as well as the material culture and social structures. Almada was particularly concerned with identifying people who were Muslims and those who were not. The treatise was thus important in providing support for arguments in favour of establishing a Jesuit mission in Cape Verde and Guinea (for details, see Horta, A ‘Guiné do Cabo Verde’, and Hair, ‘Abortive settlement’). While there are occasional disparaging references to Muslims, aspects of Christian-Muslim relations are not prominent in the treatise. The treatise describes the coastal people of Senegambia from the River Senegal to Sierra Leone. It begins with the Jalofos (present-day Wolof ), who inhabited the south bank of the River Senegal on the coastal strip of land bordering the territory of the Fula Galalhos (present-day Peul). In Almada’s estimation, the Jalofos would be the hardest to convert to Christianity because they were Muslims – ‘Moors’, in his words – and had among them all along the coast bexerins (marabouts, a likely corruption of the Arabic mubashshirūn, ‘those who proclaim the good news’,



andré álvares de almada

479

or of the corresponding Seríng, the Wolof equivalent for the Peul ceerno, pl. seereenBe). Although the Tratado breve was not published until 1733 and was only fully printed in the 1840s, it had profound influence on the developing historiography of West Africa. A manuscript copy fell into the hands of the Jesuits and was sent to Portugal, and in 1605 Father Fernão Guerreiro, preparing an edition of letters from Portuguese missionaries worldwide, with chapters on the newly-founded Cape Verde mission, included a chapter that summarised Almada’s ethnographic information. There are now three different manuscripts of Almada’s treatise, none of them in his own hand. These appear to be an early and later version of the account and a summary of the former. The Lisbon manuscript (National Library of Portugal codex 297), the more extensive, has never been published in full. There is also the Porto manuscript and the later summary with annotations (National Library of Portugal codex 525). Their dates are not given, but the details ‘12-13 years ago’ in the last chapter of the Lisbon manuscript, and ‘14 years ago’ in the Porto manuscript have enabled Horta to establish a date of 1592-3 for the Lisbon manuscript, 1594 for the Porto manuscript, and 1596 for codex 525. Significance The Tratado breve is almost certainly the most important single source for this region in the mid-16th to mid-17th century period. Almada covers almost the whole stretch of coast between Cape Verde and the Shoals of St Ann, and the detail of his ethnographic description is notable. In his descriptions, he documents the spread and progress of Islam among the groups along the coast. His account influenced many later writers. The ethnographical information, transmitted via Guerreiro, echoes through almost all writings on West Africa between 1605 and 1800 such as, for instance, the compilations in French of Davidity (1660), in Dutch of Olfert Dapper (1668) and in English of Jean Barbot (1732). Publications MS Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal – codex 297, fols 1-109 (1592-3); BNL digitalised version available at http://purl.pt/17338 MS Porto, Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto – codex 603 (1594) MS Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal – 525 codex (1596) André Álvares de Almada, Relaçăo e descripçăo de Guine, Lisbon, 1733

480

andré álvares de almada

André Álvares de Almada, Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde, ed. D. Köpke, Porto, 1841; digitalised version available at https:// archive.org/stream/tratadobrevedosr00alma#page/94/mode/2up L. Silveira (ed.), Edição nova do Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné feito pelo Capitão André Álvares d’Almada, Lisbon, 1946, pp. 89-98 Brásio (ed. and trans.), André Álvares de Almada, Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde Hair (ed. and trans.), André Álvares de Almada, An interim and makeshift edition of André Álvares de Almada’s Brief treatise of the rivers of Guinea A.L. Ferronha (ed.), Tratado breve dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo-Verde: feito pelo Capitão André Álvares d’Almada: ano de 1594, Lisbon, 1994 Studies T.H. Mota, ‘A outra cor de Mafamede. Aspectos do islamismo na Guiné em três narrativas luso-africanas (1594-1625)’, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, 2014 (MA Diss. Fluminense Federal University) F.A.C. Ribeiro, Terrastenentes-Mercadores. Tráfico e sociedade em Cabo-Verde, XV-XVII, Rio de Janeiro, 2012 J. Horta, A ‘Guiné do Cabo Verde’. Produção textual e representações (1578-1684), Lisbon, 2011 I. Cabral, ‘Política e sociedade. Ascensão e queda de uma elite endógena’, in M.E. Madeira Santos (ed.), História geral de Cabo Verde, vol. 2, Lisbon, 1995, 225-73 G. Brooks, Landlords and strangers. Ecology, society and trade in western Africa, 1000-1630, Boulder CO, 1993 J. Boulègue, Les Luso-Africains de Senégambie, XVI-XIX siècles, Lisbon, 1989 P.E. Hair, ‘The abortive settlement of Sierra Leone (1570-1625)’, in ViceAlmirante A. Teixeira da Mota in memoriam, Lisbon, 1987, 171-208 (repr. in P. Hair, Africa encountered. European contacts and evidence 1450-1700, Aldershot, 1997, no. III) A. Teixeira da Mota, Dois escritores quinhentistas de Cabo Verde. André Álvares de Almada e André Dornelas, Lisbon, 1971 L. Silveira, ‘Contribuição portuguesa para o conhecimento da Guiné. Os testemunhos de André Álvares de Almada e André de Faro’, 2ª Conferência Internacional dos Africanistas Ocidentais, Bissau, 1947, Lisbon, 1952, vol. 4, pp. 405-12 Francisco Aimara Ribeiro

Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Bābā ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥājj Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad Aqīt al-Tinbuktī; Aḥmad Bābā al-Masūfī al-Tinbuktī; Aḥmad Bābā Es Sudane; Aḥmad Bābā the Black Date of Birth 26 October 1556 Place of Birth Mali, possibly Araouane Date of Death 22 April 1627 Place of Death Timbuktu, Mali

Biography

Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī was a renowned and prolific Muslim scholar from Songhay. He was born on 25 October 1556 into the Masūfa clan of the Aqīt, an illustrious lineage of Muslim scholars who belonged to the social and intellectual elite of Timbuktu. During most of the 16th century, when Timbuktu was in its heyday as capital of the gold trade and West Africa’s most important centre of Islamic learning, members of the Aqīt lineage held the office of qāḍī. Modern sources sometimes identify Araouane in present-day Mali as Aḥmad Bābā’s place of birth, though Paolo de Moraes Farias points out that no pre-19th-century source mentions this (Moraes Farias, ‘Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī’). Aḥmad Bābā was educated in Timbuktu and studied grammar, exegesis and Islamic jurisprudence under Muḥammad Baghayogho al-Wangarī, his father Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥājj Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad Aqīt and several other relatives. By the time Aḥmad Bābā was in his midthirties and had become a well-established scholar and author, Aḥmad al-Manṣūr of Morocco invaded Songhay; he conquered Timbuktu in 1591. This event dramatically changed life in the city and the position of the Aqīt lineage. In 1594, the qāḍī ʿUmar ibn Maḥmūd and other prominent figures from Timbuktu’s elite were accused of subversion against the rule of Aḥmad al-Manṣūr and deported to Marrakech as prisoners. Aḥmad Bābā was among the captives. Though his house arrest in Marrakech was lifted after two years, he was not allowed to return to Timbuktu until 1608, where he worked until his death in 1627. Aḥmad Bābā was a prolific author and respected scholar; estimates of the number of books he wrote vary from approximately 40 to

482

aḥmad bābā al-tinbuktī

approximately 70 (Moraes Farias, ‘Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī’; Hunwick, ‘New source’, p. 570). His best known works are Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭrīz al-Dībāj (‘The attainment of joy through embroidering on the Dībāj’), a supplement to Ibn Farḥūn’s biographical dictionary, discussing Mālikī scholars from the Maghreb and West Africa, written in 1596, and Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd (‘The ladder of ascent towards grasping the law concerning transported black Africans’), which discusses the legitimacy of the enslavement of Africans.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary P.F. de Moraes Farias, art. ‘Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī’, EI3 C. Wise, art. ‘Ahmad Baba al-Massufi al-Tinbukti’, in A.K. Akyeampong and H.L. Gates (eds), Dictionary of African biography, Oxford, 2012, 124-5 E.N. Saad, The social history of Timbuktu. The role of Muslim scholars and notables 1400-1900, Cambridge, 1983 M.A. Zouber, Aḥmad Bābā de Tombouctou (1556–1627). Sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1977 J.O. Hunwick, ‘Further light on Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī’, Research Bulletin (Centre of Arabic Documentation, University of Ibadan) 2/2 (1966) 19-31 J.O. Hunwick, ‘A new source for the biography of Ahmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī (1556-1627)’, Bulletin of the School of African and Oriental Studies 27 (1964) 568-93 J.O. Hunwick, ‘Aḥmad Bābā and the Moroccan invasion of the Sudan’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 2 (1962) 311–28

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd, ‘The ladder of ascent towards grasping the law concerning transported black Africans’ Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāf majlūb al-Sūdān, ‘The exposition and explanation concerning the varieties of transported black Africans’ Date Late 16th or early 17th century Original Language Arabic



aḥmad bābā al-tinbuktī

483

Description Aḥmad Bābā’s Miʿrāj is a short treatise (10 pages in print) that discusses the legitimacy of enslaving Africans. It is a fatwā in response to a query by a man called Saʿīd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Jirārī, who lived in the region of Tuwat in present-day southern Algeria (Novo, ‘Islamic law’, p. 5). Timothy Cleaveland hypothesises that al-Jirārī may have been a merchant involved in the trans-Saharan slave-trade, whilst Marta García Novo believes he was a scholar or a scholar-to-be (Cleaveland, ‘Ahmad Baba’, p. 49; Novo, ‘Islamic law’, p. 5). Similar questions were posed to Aḥmad Bābā by a man called Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Ῑsī, who Hunwick believes was a student of Aḥmad Bābā and the copyist of a manuscript of the text now kept in the Melville J. Herskovits Library of Africana in Evanston, Illinois (Hunwick, ‘Aḥmad Bābā’, pp. 131-2). The exact date of the treatise is uncertain. Often 1615 is cited, but the copyist of the Evanston manuscript states that he copied the text in 1006 (1596), which points to an earlier date, at least for part of the text (Hunwick, ‘Aḥmad Bābā’, p. 132). At present, the Evanston manuscript is the oldest known version of the treatise. According to the text, al-Jirārī seeks Aḥmad Bābā’s opinion regarding ‘slaves brought from a land the Islam of which has been well-known, such as the land of Bornu, ʿAfna [Hausa], Kano, Gao, Katsina, etc. whose Islam is known far and wide’ (Barbour and Jacobs, ‘Miʿraj’, p. 127). From al-Jirārī’s queries it is evident that he was aware that enslaving Muslims was only legitimate when it concerned Muslims who had been forcibly converted to Islam or who had converted to Islam after being enslaved; free Muslims could not be legitimately enslaved. From the line of his reasoning, however, it is also evident that he associates ‘being black’ with slavery. Hence, he has sought guidance from Aḥmad Bābā as to whether black Africans who claim to be Muslims can be enslaved. In his reply Aḥmad Bābā reiterates the classical positions regarding the enslavement of Muslims. This is followed by an adamant denunciation of race or ethnic belonging as legitimate grounds for enslavement; he underscores this by disavowing any link between the curse of Ham, skin-colour and slavery. Rather, he states, the only legitimate reason for enslavement is ‘non-belief’. Therefore, in order to avoid acquiring a Muslim as a slave, the buyer is obliged to investigate the religious affiliation of the slave before completing his purchase. Aḥmad Bābā makes numerous references to earlier fuqāhāʾ to underscore his position. He then applies the fatwā to the context of West Africa, stating that people who come from countries that have had a Muslim government

484

aḥmad bābā al-tinbuktī

for a long time or from ethnic groups that are known to be Muslims cannot be enslaved, because they can be presumed to be Muslims. Towards the end of his fatwā, he gives a list of West African ethnic groups known to be Muslim as well as an overview of ethnic groups known to be unbelievers, possibly intended as a guide for al-Jirārī and other slave-traders. The lists also serve as an indication of the spread of Islam in West Africa in the early 17th century. Cleaveland observes that is it remarkable that Aḥmad Bābā does not address the fate of West African Muslim minority groups or recent converts who live in predominantly non-Muslim countries. Neither does Aḥmad Bābā mention the fact that, generally speaking, Mālikī jurisprudence rejects the enslavement of non-Muslims outside the context of a jihād. Cleaveland and Novo consider these hiatuses to be deliberate omissions, stating that Aḥmad Bābā seems to place the interests of the slave-traders above the freedom of people. They explain this by pointing to Aḥmad Bābā’s social context, asserting it to be highly likely that members of his extended family were involved in trans-Saharan trade, a substantial part of which consisted of the slave-trade (Cleaveland, ‘Ahmad Baba’, p. 52; Novo, ‘Islamic law’, p 14). As part of the discussion of whether sub-Saharan unbelievers can be enslaved, Aḥmad Bābā draws on older texts that relate the subject of the legitimacy of enslaving African kāfirūn to legal opinions on enslaving Jews, Christians and Majūs. The Miʿrāj mentions Christians (Naṣārā) on four occasions, once referencing the Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldūn and three times referring to a fatwā on slavery by Makhlūf al-Balbālī (d. 1533), a scholar from the oasis of Tabelbala (in present-day Algeria), who taught in Morocco as well as in West Africa. While the reference to Ibn Khaldūn serves to draw on the example of Abyssinian slaves in the time of Muḥammad, the fatwā by al-Balbālī connects the term ‘Christians’ with the notion ‘unbelievers’, who can be legitimately enslaved. The fatwā demonstrates that there was a debate amongst Muslims in West Africa in the late 16th and early 17th centuries about slavery against the background of the trans-Saharan rather than the trans-Atlantic slavetrade, as Paul Lovejoy seems to suggest (Lovejoy, ‘Context of enslavement’, pp. 9-19). Aḥmad Bābā’s Miʿrāj was a highly influential work, which continued to be copied and re-copied within the Maghreb and West Africa, and was repeatedly cited in discussions regarding slavery (Cleaveland, ‘Ahmad Baba’, p. 49).



aḥmad bābā al-tinbuktī

485

Illustration 12. Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī, Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd

Significance Aḥmad Bābā’s Miʿrāj is one of the first, if not the first, West African Muslim text known to mention Christians. It is uncertain whether Aḥmad Bābā was personally acquainted with Christians, though he may have encountered them during his period of detainment in Marrakech. In the fatwā, however, ‘Christians’ are merely a category, rather than a reference to actual people of flesh and blood. Drawing on al-Balbālī, Aḥmad Bābā considers Christians to be kāfirūn, stating: ‘the Sudanese non-believers are like other kāfir whether they are Christians, Jews, Persians, Berbers, or any others who stick to non-belief and do not embrace Islam’ (Barbour and Jacobs, ‘The Miʿraj’, pp. 129-30). Although he mentions that ‘there is no difference between all the kuffār except the ones protected by treaty, the people of the dhimmī [allied people] and the murtaddin [apostates]’, he does not seem to classify Christians as dhimmῑs (Barbour and Jacobs, ‘The Miʿraj’, pp. 136). He reiterates this classification of Christians as kāfir when he discusses the Prophet’s position on slave-possession and more particularly on the possession of Abyssinian slaves. He writes: ‘The Abyssinians of that time were kuffār except those who embraced Islam like the Negus [Emperor of Ethiopia], I mean Aṣḥama. Thus, it was legal to own those seized from them because those who possessed them were very sure of their condition and their infidelity’ (Barbour and Jacobs, ‘The Miʿraj’, p. 131). He makes mention in his text of the fact that at the time of the Prophet Abyssinia was a predominantly Christian country, but does not indicate that because of

486

aḥmad bābā al-tinbuktī

this they may have been considered ‘people of the dhimmī ’. This seems to imply that in Aḥmad Bābā’s view Christians could legitimately be enslaved. Publications The Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd was copied extensively over time; MSS from various periods exist. Listed below are some of the oldest. MS Evanston, Northwestern University, J. Melville Herskovits Africana Library – Hunwick 535-545 (1596; shorter version) MS Timbuktu, Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library (about 1615) MS Rabat, Bibliothèque général de Rabat – D478, fols 115-34 (1781) MS Paris, BNF – 5259, fols 19-23 (late 19th century) MS Rabat, Bibliothèque du palais royal – 7248 (n.d.) MS Rabat, Bibliothèque générale de Rabat – J100, D194, D478, D1724 (n.d.) E. Zeys, ‘Esclavage et guerre sainte. Consultation juridique addressé aux gens de Touat par un érudit nègre, câdi de Timbouctou aux dix-septième siècle’, Bulletin de la réunion d’études algériennes (1900) 125-51, 166-89 B. Barbour and M. Jacobs, ‘The Miʿraj. A legal treatise on slavery by Ahmad Baba’, in J.R. Willis (ed.), Slaves and slavery in Muslim Africa, London, 1985, vol. 1, pp. 125-38 (English trans.); 139-59 (Arabic text) M. Zaouit, ‘Mirag et les agwiba de A. Baba de Tomboctou (1556-1627). Deux consultations juridiques relatives a l’esclavage des noirs au Bilad as-Sudan fin de xvi siècle et début de xvii siècle. Edition critique et analyse historique’, Paris, 1997 (PhD Diss. University of Paris 1) F. Harrak and J. Hunwick (eds), Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti, Miʿrāj al-suʿūd. Ahmad Bābā’s replies on slavery, Rabat, 2000 Studies T. Cleaveland, ‘Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti and his Islamic critique of racial slavery in the Maghrib’, Journal of North African Studies 20 (2015) 42-64 C. Gratien, ‘Race, slavery and Islamic law in the early modern Atlantic. Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti’s treatise on enslavement’, Journal of North African Studies 18 (2013) 454-68 S. Lliteras, ‘Ahmad Baba of Timbuktu (1556-1627). Introduction to his life and works’, in L. Meltzer, L. Hooper and G. Klinghardt (eds), Timbukti scripts and scholarship. Catalogue of selected manuscripts from the exhibitions, Cape Town, Institut des hautes études et des rechèrches islamiques, 2013, 21-31



aḥmad bābā al-tinbuktī

487

M. García Novo, ‘Islamic law and slavery in premodern West Africa’, Entremons. UPF Journal of World History 2 (2011) 1-20 P.E. Lovejoy, ‘The context of enslavement in West Africa. Ahmad Bābā and the ethics of slavery’, in J.G. Landers and B.M. Robinson (eds), Slaves, subjects and subversives. Blacks in colonial Latin America, Albuquerque, 2006, 9-38 O. Kane and J.O. Hunwick, Arabic literature of Africa, vol. 4. Writings of Western Sudanic Africa, Leiden, 2003, pp. 17-31 J.O. Hunwick, ‘Aḥmad Bābā on slavery’, Soudanic Africa 11 (2000) 131-9 Barbour and Jacobs, ‘Miʿraj’ M.A. Zouber, Ahmad Bābā de Tombouctou (1556-1627). Sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1977, pp. 129-46 Martha Frederiks

Zä Dəngəl, Emperor of Ethiopia Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown Date of Death 13 October 1604 Place of Death Barca, Ethiopia

Biography

Zä Dəngəl reigned for one year as Emperor of Ethiopia (1603-4) under the throne name Asnaf Sägəd II. He was the nephew of Emperor Śarṣ́a Dəngəl, and ruled during a turbulent period when the Ethiopian monarchy was weak and constantly challenged. Dynastic struggles erupted after the demise of Śarṣ́a Dəngəl, who initially promised the crown to Zä Dəngəl. However, in 1596, the empress and her power-hungry sons-inlaw, Ras Atnatewos, the governor of the province of Goǧǧam, and Kəfəlä Waḥəd, governor of Təgray, persuaded the dying sovereign to bequeath the throne to Yaʿeqob, the monarch’s seven year-old son. Soon after the decision was made, the empress ordered the seizure of Zä Dəngəl and his confinement at Däbrä Daga, a religious retreat on an island in Lake Ṭana, from where he eventually managed to escape and take refuge in Goǧǧam. In 1603, Yaʿeqob fell out of favour with his patrons, and ras Zä Śəllase named Zä Dəngəl as emperor, expecting him to be a mere figurehead. However, the new sovereign turned out to be an independent-minded ruler and a capable decision-maker, who carried out personnel changes and introduced administrative reforms to bolster his authority. To begin with, he appointed the influential Zä Śəllase as governor of Dämbəya and neighbouring Wägära, and arranged a marriage between his own sister and Zä Śəllase. Two extant edicts provide evidence of his policies. The first instituted a mass levy to establish a new army directly under his command. The second, preserved as the slogan: ‘Man is free; land is tributary’, aimed to relieve oppression of the farmers and merchants by the nobility and their forces. While earning mass support for the monarch, this provoked jealousy and antagonism among the nobility. Thereafter, Zä Dəngəl carried out sweeping personnel changes, appointing new governors to all the strategically important Amhara provinces in Dämbəya. Also reflecting his enthusiasm for reform, Zä Dəngəl sought to learn about European systems of law and government by inviting the Jesuit missionary Pedro Páez to the court. Páez accepted, arriving in the capital



zä dƎngƎl, emperor of ethiopia

489

on 17 June 1604. During their meetings, Zä Dəngəl secretly confided his desire to embrace the Roman Catholic faith, but he expected the Ethiopian nobility to oppose this. Shortly after, Zä Dəngəl abolished the Ethiopian Orthodox Sabbath observance. Although Páez was sympathetic to the measure in principle, it surprised him because the emperor lacked the means to enforce it. Nevertheless, Zä Dəngəl refused to annul the prohibition, thereby provoking the ire of the nobility. Aware of how unpopular his reforms were among the nobility, Zä Dəngəl asked Páez to help him obtain the support of the Portuguese in his struggle against the local lords. In response, Páez drafted a letter to Pope Clement VIII and King Philip III of Spain (and Portugal), explaining Zä Dəngəl’s interest in Catholicism and his need for military assistance. In the meantime, Zä Dəngəl managed to put together his new army, but his success was short-lived. In the wake of the monarch’s edict freeing segments of the population from the lords’ subjugation and his abandonment of his forefathers’ faith, Atnatewos and Zä Śəllase started an uprising after the rainy season of 1604. They also persuaded the patriarch, abunä Peṭros, to defect to their side. Less able as a warrior than as an administrator, Zä Dəngəl was defeated in battle by Zä Śəllase on 13 October 1604. His corpse remained on the battlefield for three days until some peasants buried him in a small church in Dämbəya. About ten years later, Emperor Susənyos took his cousin’s remains to their final resting place in Däbrä Daga.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary F.M. Esteves Pereira, Chronica de Susenyos, Rei de Etiopia, Lisbon, 1892-1900, vol. 1, pp. 48, 53; vol. 2, pp. 39, 42 J. Perruchon, ‘Notes pour l’histoire d’Éthiopie. Règnes de Ya‘qob et Za-Dengel (1597-1607)’, Revue Sémitique 4 (1896) 355-63 C. Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, Rome, 1903-17, vol. 2, pp. 115, 146, 176, 375, 381, 421, 502, 518; vol. 3, pp. 207-9, 245, 247-50; vol. 9, pp. 222, 230, 233-4, 241-2, 322 P. Páez, História da Etiópia, ed. I. Boavida, H. Pennec and M. João Ramos, Lisbon, 2008, pp. 140, 160, 181 306, 310, 335, 399, 599-600, 622-5 Secondary L. Cohen, art. ‘Zä Dəngəl’, in S. Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2014, vol. 5, pp. 103-4 D. Crummey, Land and society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia, Oxford, 2000, pp. 62-8

490

zä dƎngƎl, emperor of ethiopia

M. Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea, London, 1980, pp. 180-5 G. Beshah and M. Wolde Aregay, The question of the union of the churches in Luso-Ethiopian relations (1500-1632), Lisbon, 1964, pp. 69-73

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Carta do Emperador de Ethiopia pera sua Santidade de 26 de junho do anno de 1604, ‘Letter from the Emperor of Ethiopia to his Holiness, of 26 June 1604’ Date 1604 Original Language Portuguese Description According to Pedro Páez, although Zä Dəngəl was inclined to accept Catholicism, he preferred to keep this secret. The emperor was interested in marrying his son to the daughter of King Philip III of Spain (and Portugal) in order to consolidate the union between the two kingdoms. On 26 June 1604, he wrote letters to Pope Clement VIII, King Philip III, and Aires de Saldanha, the Viceroy of India, which Páez included in História da Etiópia in Portuguese translation. The basic content of the letters was similar. Together with the request for the arranged marriage, Zä Dəngəl asked Philip III to send him ‘men of war’ to deal with invasions by the ‘gentile enemies, who were known as Gallas’, i.e. the Oromo people before they embarked on the long road to Islamisation. The emperor perceived the Islamic presence on the Red Sea coast as an obstacle to the Christian union, calling for a single body with one heart. He hoped for Portuguese help to expel the Muslims from the island of Dahlak and recover Christian control over the trade routes. In his letter to King Philip, Zä Dəngəl was even more explicit about the Christian interest in confronting the Muslim threat. He recalled that the Portuguese had played a critical role in saving Christian Ethiopia from conquest by Aḥmad Grañ in the third and fourth decades of the 16th century. Zä Dəngəl’s letter now explored the possibility of forming a military alliance to take control of the Red Sea ports, Ḥərgigo and Massawa. Significance Zä Dəngəl’s request for cooperation with the Portuguese was mainly for help in dealing with Muslim pressure from the coast and the inland



zä dƎngƎl, emperor of ethiopia

491

regions. In the mid-16th century, the Ottoman Turks occupied Massawa and created the coastal province of Ḥabeš, which they held till the mid-19th century, as well as making repeated attempts to expand into and control the highlands. The mainland port of Ḥərgigo served as the main source of Massawa’s water supply. Despite their economic interdependence, the two ports were often divided politically. Thus, in the 1520s, Ḥərgigo was under the control of the Christian baḥər nägaš, whereas Massawa was under the Muslim ruler of the Dahlak sultanate. Later, in 1557, both ports were controlled by the Ottoman Empire. As part of their effort to advance inland they established a fort with an Ottoman garrison, which the Ethiopians found impregnable. Although Emperor Śarṣ́a Dəngəl, Zä Dəngəl’s predecessor, defeated the Turks and their inland allies around 1590, the coastal areas remained under Ottoman control; in 1598, his attempt to capture the fort had been unsuccessful. Through Massawa, the Ethiopian Muslims secured an outlet to the rest of the Islamic world, and exercised influence on the neighbouring regions. As Zä Dəngəl wrote to King Philip, his forces were planning to take the port of Ḥərgigo, while he was expecting the Portuguese viceroy to capture Massawa. His basic plan was to remove Muslim control over the trade routes, dividing the profits gained between the Portuguese and Ethiopians. Publications MS Rome, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu – Goa 42 (1622) MS Braga, Biblioteca Pública de Braga – 778 (1624-5) Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum, vol. 3, pp. 247-50 P. Pais, História da Etiópia. Reprodução do codice coevoda Biblioteca de Braga com uma introdução de Elaine Sanceau, Pórto, 1945-6, vol. 3, pp. 41-3 Páez, História da Etiópia, ed. Boavida, Pennec and João Ramos, Lisbon, 2008, pp. 623-5 P. Páez, Historia de Etiopía, ed. I. Boavida, H. Pennec and M. João Ramos; trans. J. Inarejos, La Coruña, 2009, pp. 283-6 (Spanish trans.) P. Páez, History of Ethiopia, 1622, ed. I. Boavida, H. Pennec and M. João Ramos; trans. C.B. Tribe, London, 2011, vol. 2, pp. 171-3 (English trans.) Leonardo Cohen

Baltasar Barreira Date of Birth 1531 Place of Birth Lisbon Date of Death 24 June 1612 Place of Death Santiago, Cape Verde

Biography

Baltasar Barreira was born in Lisbon in 1531. At the age of 25, he joined the Society of Jesus and served for a number years in Portugal before being sent abroad as a missionary. Biographers describing his Portuguese ministry especially laud his compassion and care for the sick during the 1569 plague epidemic in Lisbon (‘Barreira, Balthazar’, in Rose (ed.), A new general biographical dictionary, p. 223). In 1577, Barreira was sent to the kingdoms of Luanda, Angola and Congo, where he worked for 14 years (d’Outreman, ‘Baltasar Barreira’, p. 74). It seems he was recalled to Portugal in 1592 (d’Outreman, ‘Le Père Baltazár Barreira’, pp. 307-8; ‘Barreira, Balthazar’, in Rose (ed.), A new general biographical dictionary). Information for the period between 1592 and 1604 is scarce, though there are indications that he worked at the Jesuit college in Evora (‘Barreira, Balthazar’, in Rose (ed.), A new general biographical dictionary). In 1604, Barreira, already a septuagenarian, was elected to head a fourperson mission to the west coast of Africa, called the Guinea of Cape Verde. Contemporary sources state that, despite his advanced age, he had repeatedly requested to be allowed to return to Angola (d’Outreman, ‘Baltasar Barreira’, pp. 74-5), and when that proved not to be possible he rejoiced in the new challenge of working in Guinea: ‘that old man was so happy that tears of joy flowed down his cheeks’ (d’Outreman, ‘Le Père Baltazár Barreira’, p. 309). In July 1604, Barreira and three other Jesuits landed on the island of Santiago, Cape Verde. The aim of their mission was to evangelise the Guinea coast as well as to open a school in Santiago that could serve as a minor seminary (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 3 [ARSI, lus. 83, fols 362-4]). Six months after arriving at Santiago, Barreira and Brother Pero Fernandes set off for the mainland of Africa, leaving Fr Manoel de Barros in charge of the mission house in Santiago. The



baltasar barreira

493

fourth member of the party, Fr Manuel Fernandes, had died within five weeks of arrival (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 4 [Guerreiro, Relaçam, vol. 4, ch. 8]). Barreira and Fernandes spent six months in the Cacheu region (in present-day Guinea Bissau), after which Barreira continued to the Sierra Leone estuary, leaving Fernandes behind to work in Cacheu (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 7 [ARSI, lus. 83, fols 357-8]). Barreira is best known for his letters and reports about the Sierra Leone region, where he worked until 1608. His reports and letters indicate that he was optimistic about the possibilities of spreading Christianity in the region; he repeatedly writes of how he was hospitably received by local African chiefs and how several requested baptism for themselves as well as for their family members (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 29 [Guerreiro, Relaçam, chs 2-5]). In 1608, Barreira returned to Santiago, travelling along the coast via Bissau and the Petite Côte (Joal and Portudal) of present-day Senegal. From 1608 onwards, he worked in Santiago, where, in the words of Paul Hair, he ‘unprofitably spent the remaining years before his death in 1612, trying to organise the establishment of a seminary college and quarrelling with the governor’ (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, p. 11). Barreira died in Santiago on 24 June 1612, well over 80 years old. Barreira’s work in the Sierra Leone estuary was continued by Fr Manuel Álvares, and after Álvares’s death in 1617 the Jesuit mission to Sierra Leone was discontinued. According to a letter from 1617 written by Fr Sebastão Gomes to the Jesuit provincial, this was partly because of the high mortality rate among Jesuit missionaries, and partly because the captaincy of Sierra Leone was in the hands of Pedro Álvares Pereira, who distrusted the Jesuits (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 48 [ARSI, lus. 74, fols 141-3]). For a number of years, the Jesuits continued to work in the Cacheu region and in Santiago. In 1642, the Jesuit mission to the Cape Verde Islands and the Guinea of Cape Verde closed down permanently.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary F. Guerreiro, Relaçam annal das cousas que fezeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus, Lisbon, 1609, vol. 4 P. du Jarric, Troisiesme partie de l’histoire des choses plus memorables, Bordeaux, 1614, pp. 375-466 (chs 45-52, ‘Quelques Peres de la Compagnie de Iesus sont envoyez aux Iles du cap verd et à la terre ferme de la Guinée’)

494

baltasar barreira

P.R. d’Outreman, ‘Baltasar Barreira’, in Receuil petit d’aucuns hommes illustres et des plus signalé martyrs de la Compagnie de Jesus, Paris, 1622, 73-6 P.R. d’Outreman, ‘Le Père Baltazár Barreira’, in Tableaux des personages signalé de la Compagnie de Jesus, (s.l.), 1623, 307-10 A. Teixeira da Mota and P.E.H. Hair (eds), Jesuit documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands 1585-1617 in English translation, Liverpool, 1989 (unpublished; typescript edition, Department of History, University of Liverpool, no page numbers) P.E.H. Hair, An interim translation of Manuel Álvares S.J., Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa [Ethiopia minor and a geographical account of the Province of Sierra Leone], issued by the Department of History, University of Liverpool, 30 September 1990 Secondary G.M. Correia de Castro, O percurso geográfico e missionário de Baltasar Barreira em Cabo Verde, Guiné, Serra Leoa, Lisbon, 2001 A.J. Gittins, art. ‘Balthazar Barreira’, in G. Anderson (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Christian missions, Grand Rapids MI, 1998, 44-5 J. Kenny, The Catholic Church in tropical Africa 1445-1850, Ibadan, 1982 B. Pinto Bull and J. Boulègue, ‘La mission de Baltasar Barreira à Joal et Portudal (1609)’, Notes Africaines 130 (1971) 44-6 A.P. Kup, ‘Jesuit and Capuchin missions of the seventeenth century’, Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion 5 (1963) 68-72 M.J. Bane, Catholic pioneers in West Africa, Dublin, 1956 A. de Backer, art. ‘Barreira, Balthasar’, in Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus ou notices bibliografiques, Liège, vol. 3, 1856, 114-15 Art. ‘Barreira, Balthazar’, in H.J. Rose (ed.), A new general biographical dictionary projected and partly arranged, vol. 3, London, 1841, 223

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Letters and reports 1604-12 Date 1604-12 Original Language Portuguese Description Baltasar Barreira was a prolific writer of a large number of letters as well as extensive annual reports on the Jesuit mission in the Guinea of Cape Verde. About 20 letters, five annual reports and some other materials have survived. Substantial parts of the reports as well as compilations of Barreira’s letters were published almost immediately after they were despatched. Consequently, some of his writings have been preserved



baltasar barreira

495

and transmitted in print, while the original manuscripts are no longer extant. Much of the Barreira material can be found in the fourth volume of Fernão Guerreiro’s Relaçam annal das cousas que fezeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus (1609), as well in P. du Jarric’s Troisiesme partie de l’histoire des choses plus memorables (1614). Barreira’s reports and letters give an extensive and lively description of Africans and Europeans on the Upper Guinea coast at the beginning of the 17th century, making clear that the region was an important AfricanEuropean political and commercial contact zone. The documents clearly reflect Barreira’s pursuit of Portuguese and Jesuit interests on the Guinea coast, as is evidenced by his constant advocacy to consolidate Portuguese power in West Africa. But he also offers ethnographic accounts about the region, describing the scenery, the peoples, their customs and their culture. Themes addressed in the reports and letters include the political organisation of the region, the inter-ethnic clashes, transatlantic slavery, ritual life, traditional religiosity and the spread of Islam. Interestingly, when talking about the latter, Barreira does not use the words ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslims’ as such; rather, he refers to Islam as ‘the [cursed] sect of Mohammed’ or ‘the religion of the Moors’ and to Muslims as ‘those who practise it’ or ‘those who belong to it’. Barreira’s ethnographic accounts are written from the vantage point of Christian mission, interwoven with narratives of evangelisation, conversion and conquest that inform the reader of the progress of Christianity (in its Jesuit interpretation) on the Upper Guinea coast. Significance The significance of the Barreira material is twofold. First, he gives ample attention to Islam in the region, describing its spread among the Wolof, the Mandinka, the Serer and the Fulani, as well as the initial contacts of groups in the Sierra Leone estuary with Islam. Barreira is one of the oldest sources on West Africa that distinguishes between the various forms by which Muslim scholars (called bixirin) propagated Islam in the region: by education, by the manufacture of amulets and also by dispersion of their scholarly community, with senior scholars sending out their students to start new settlements in unfamiliar territories. Barreira also describes the influence that Muslim scholars had among African chiefs, and narrates that bixirin and their pupils often lived in their own settlements, close to but separate from traditional villages. Second, Barreira is the oldest source in West Africa that explicitly frames the relation between Christians and Muslims as one of competition

496

baltasar barreira

for the soul of Africa. He reiterates again and again the need to send more missionaries to Guinea in order to prevent Islam from gaining the upper hand. He himself experienced the reality of this competition: in 1607, a scheduled baptism of the Sousou king was thwarted by the appearance of a praise-singer (called Judeu, griot) who for hours on end sang songs vehemently denouncing Christianity and praising Islam, resulting in the king’s change of heart (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 29). As early as 1606, Barreira observed that Christianity only seemed to make headway among traditional believers, but no progress whatsoever was made in areas where Islam was already present. He states: ‘[I]t does not appear that there is any cure for those who have already received the sect of Mohammed but one may have more hope for others who have only sniffed at this sect or still have idols they worship’ (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 13). Publications Barreira’s surviving letters are scattered over a series of archives. A substantial number can be found in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Rome, while others are held in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (ATT), Lisbon. Other letters, as well as most of the annual reports, no longer appear to be extant in manuscript form, though they have been transmitted in print via Du Jarric’s Troisiesme partie de l’histoire des choses plus memorables (1609), as well as Guerreiro’s Relaçam annal das cousas que fezeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus (1614). MS Rome, ARSI – Lus. 83, fols 362-64 (Santiago, 22 July 1604, Baltasar Barreira possibly to Fr Antonio Colaco) MS Rome, ARSI – Lus. 83. fols 294-65 (Biguba, 28 January 1605, Baltasar Barreira to Fr Manoel de Barros) MS Rome, ARSI – Lus. 83, fols 296-97 (Biguba, 13 May 1605, Baltasar Barreira to the Lord High Bailiff) MS Rome, ARSI – Lus. 83, fols 357-58 (Biguba, 13 May 1605, Baltasar Barreira to the King, D. Filipe II) MS Rome, ARSI – Lus. 106, fol. 339 (Serra Leoa, 8 March 1606, Baltasar Barreira to Fr André Álvares) MS Rome, ARSI – Lus. 74, fols 64-65 (Serra Leoa, 4 March 1607, Baltasar Barreira to Fr João Álvares) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 36, doc. 94, fols 3-4 (Santiago, February 1609, Baltasar Barreira to the Provincial, Fr Jerónimo Dias)



baltasar barreira

497

MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 36, doc. 94, fol. 4 (Santiago, 12 February 1609, Baltasar Barreira to the Provincial of the Jesuits) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 36, doc. 92 (Santiago, 9 May 1609, Baltasar Barreira to Fr Andre Álvares) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 36, doc. 92 (Santiago, 11 May 1609, Baltasar Barreira to Fr Andre Álvares) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 68, doc. 42 (Santiago, 8 January 1610, Baltasar Barreira to Fr Andre Álvares) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 68, doc. 42 fol. 11-12 (Santiago, 6 May 1610, Baltasar Barreira to the Provincial of Portugal) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 36, doc. 91 (Missions of the Society of Jesus in Cape Verde and Angola, November 1610) MS Lisbon, ATT – Cártorio dos Jesuitas, maço 68, doc. 385 and maço 36, doc. 93 (Santiago, 19 March 1612, Baltasar Barreira to the Provincial of the Jesuits) Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (23) Barreira’s report 16071608, the deeds of King Philip’, Africana Research Bulletin 16 (1989) 57-78 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (19) Barreira’s report 16071608, the deeds of King Pedro, alias Tora’, Africana Research Bulletin 12 (1982/3) 55-97 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (18) Jesuit views on a college in Africa 1609’, Africana Research Bulletin 10 (1979/80) 65-77 A. Brásio, Monumenta missionaria Africana. África ocidental, 2nd series, Lisbon, 1979, vol. 5 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (13) Barreira’s report of 1607-1608, the visit to Bena’, Africana Research Bulletin 8 (1978) 64-108 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (9) Barreira’s account of the coast of Guinea, 1606’, Africana Research Bulletin 7 (1976/7) 50-75 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (7) Barreira (letter of 9.3.1607)’, Africana Research Bulletin 6 (1976) 45-70 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (6) Barreira on just enslavement’, Africana Research Bulletin 6 (1975/6) 52-74 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (5) Barreira (letter of 23.2.1606)’, Africana Research Bulletin 5 (1974/5) 81-118

498

baltasar barreira

A. Brásio, Monumenta missionaria Africana. África ocidental, 2nd series, Lisbon, 1968 vol. 4 A. Brásio, Monumenta missionaria Africana. África ocidental, 2nd series, Lisbon, 1964, vol. 3 Du Jarric, Troisiesme partie, pp. 375-466 Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, vol. 4 Studies N. da Silva Gonçalves, Os Jesuítas e a missão de Cabo Verde (1604-1642), Lisbon, 1996 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Heretics, slaves and witches. As seen by Guinea Jesuits c. 1610’, Journal of Religion in Africa 28 (1998) 131-44 Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents P.E.H. Hair, Africa encountered. European contacts and evidence 14501700, Aldershot, 1997 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Christian influences in Sierra Leone before 1787’, Journal of Religion in Africa 27 (1997) 3-14 G. Thilmans and N.I. de Moraes, ‘La description de côte de Guinea de père Balthasar Barreira’, Bulletin de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire 34 (1972) 1-50 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Guides to the records of early West African missions’, Journal of Religion in Africa 1 (1968) 129-38 Martha Frederiks

Manuel Álvares Date of Birth Unknown (second half of the 16th century) Place of Birth Portugal Date of Death 1616 or 1617 Place of Death Sierra Leone

Biography

Little is known about Manuel Álvares before his arrival in Guinea in 1607. Paul Hair, basing his information on Sommervogel, states that Álvares was born in 1573 in Alter de Chão and entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1590 (Hair, Interim translation, introduction). Tiego Mota, however, maintains that Hair is confusing the Guinea missionary Álvares with a namesake who taught theology and philosophy in Evora and lived from 1572 to 1665. According to Mota, the Manuel Álvares who worked in Guinea was born in 1580 in Torres Novas and entered the Jesuit order in 1604 (Mota, ‘A missão jesuíta’, p. 140). As Manuel Álvares was a common name (there was at least one other Jesuit contemporary of that name, who achieved fame as an educator and Latinist), and since the sources are fragmentary and Álvares himself does not give information about his personal life before his arrival in Guinea, details about Álvares’ early life must be regarded as obscure. In February 1607, Álvares arrived in Santiago, the largest of the Cape Verde Islands. Together with the superior of the mission, Fr Manoel de Almeida, and a third member, Fr Pedro Neto Alvarez, he travelled to the mainland and arrived in the Rio Grande region in March 1607 (du Jarric, Troisiesme partie, p. 404). After a brief stay in Bissau and Santa Cruz, Álvares continued his journey to join the already elderly Fr Baltasar Barreira in Sierra Leone. Arriving around August 1607, he worked alongside Barreira in Sierra Leone for some months; the latter then left for Santiago in 1608. Apart from a brief visit by a fellow Jesuit in 1609 and an encounter with one or two Augustinian ‘rival-missionaries’ around 1613 or 1614, Álvares worked alone. What we know about him and his work comes from his own writings, consisting of a few letters, some annual reports and his manuscript Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província

500

manuel álvares

da Serra Leoa. Álvares died in 1616 or 1617 in Sierra Leone. The circumstances of his death and the location of his grave are unknown. After Álvares’ death, the Jesuit mission to Sierra Leone was discontinued. According to a letter written by Fr Sebastão Gomes to the Jesuit provincial in 1617, this was partly because of the high mortality rate amongst Jesuit missionaries, and partly because the captaincy of Sierra Leone was in the hands of Pedro Álvares Pereira, who distrusted the Jesuits (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, no. 48 [ARSI, lus. 74, fols 141-3]). For a number of years, the Jesuits continued to work in the Cacheu region and in Santiago. In 1642, the Jesuit mission to the Cape Verde Islands and the Guinea of Cape Verde closed down permanently (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Jesuit documents, introduction).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary F. Guerreiro, Relaçam annal das cousas que fezeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus, Lisbon, 1609, vol. 4 P. du Jarric, Troisiesme partie de l’histoire des choses plus memorables, Bordeaux, 1614, 375-466 (chs 45-52, ‘Quelques Peres de la Compagnie de Iesus sont envoyez aux Iles du cap verd et à la terre ferme de la Guinée’) A. Teixeira da Mota (ed.) and P.E.H. Hair (trans.), Jesuit documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands 1585-1617 in English translation, Liverpool, 1989 (not formally published) P.E.H. Hair, An interim translation of Manuel Álvares S.J., Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa, issued by the Department of History, University of Liverpool, 30 September 1990 (typed manuscript, no page numbers); African Studies Collection, University of Wisconsin: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AfricanStudies.Alvares01 Secondary T.H. Mota, ‘A missão jesuíta de Cabo Verde e o islamismo na Guiné (1607-1616)’, Temporalidades. Revista Discente do Programa de Pós-Graduação em História da UFMG 5 (2013) 137-60 J. Kenny, The Catholic Church in tropical Africa 1445-1850, Ibadan, 1982 A.P. Kup, ‘Jesuit and Capuchin missions of the seventeenth century’, Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion 5 (1963) 68-72 M.J. Bane, Catholic pioneers in West Africa, Dublin, 1956 C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jesus, Brussels, vol. 1, 1890, col. 219; vol. 8, 1898, col. 1615



manuel álvares

501

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa, ‘Ethiopia Minor and a geographical account of the Province of Sierra Leone’ Date Around 1615 Original Language Portuguese Description Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa is a work of about 90,000 words, divided into two parts. Part I gives a description of ‘the province and kingdom of the Jalofo heathen and other peoples of the coast northwest of Sierra Leone’, while Part II, which is longer, focusses on the ‘province of Sierra Leone’. According to his ‘Prologue to the reader’, Álvares supplemented his personal observations with information he gathered from ‘various friends who are as experienced and knowledgeable in relation to the subject as they are truthful’. Despite this claim of reliability, he hastens to caution his reader, stating that his material on Sierra Leone might be ‘sounder’ than his text on the areas he did not visit personally. From the information presented, it is evident that Álvares had a wide variety of informants from diverse backgrounds: it can be inferred that they included Portuguese colonists, diocesan clergy, traders and local converts, who informed Álvares about subjects related to local geography and history, as well as culture and religion. Part I of Ethiópia Menor consists of a series of chapters that briefly discuss the various ethnic groups of the Upper Guinea coast, north of Sierra Leone, outlining their history, political and social organisation and religion, as well as their main sources of livelihood. Part II is structured thematically and is composed of rich ethnographic material about the Sierra Leone region, discussing subjects such as initiation rituals, ancestor veneration, warfare, marriage customs, burial rites, ‘secret’ societies such as the Poro and the Bundu, the Mane invasion, their ritual cannibalism and ‘character of the natives’. Part II also includes two chapters on the progress of Christianity in the Sierra Leone estuary. It seems that at some point Álvares considered the manuscript to be more or less complete, because he prepared a prologue and a dedication, while still working on the footnotes. The latter were never finalised,

502

manuel álvares

however, possibly because Álvares fell ill. From the dedication, Paul Hair estimates that the manuscript reached its present form around 1615. There are no records that Álvares himself sent his work to Portugal and it is unclear how the manuscript reached Lisbon. Perhaps one of the Portuguese residents sent it to Portugal after Álvares’ death. That would explain why the manuscript ended up in a secular rather than a Jesuit archive. Álvares’ work has never been published; there is no annotated Portuguese edition. A project started by Avelino Teixeira da Mota and Paul Hair in 1969 to work on a critical edition and English translation was never realised due to Teixeira da Mota’s death. Hair did eventually make a draft translation (still full of handwritten notes). This typed manuscript is available through the Africana Digitalization Project of the University of Wisconsin, but the text has not been published. In Part I, Álvares provides elaborate descriptions of Islam in the Senegambia region, paying specific attention to Islam among the Wolof and to the Mandinka or Mande traders. He describes the influence of Muslim scholars on political life in West Africa and how they expanded this influence by spreading literacy through qur’anic schools. In addition, he gives detailed descriptions of the rituals of Muslim life, describing, for example, the ṣalāt and burial rituals, Muslim festivals and the significance of the ḥajj. Quite unique is his detailed portrayal of Muslim hierarchy in West Africa in the early 17th century (distinguishing between alemanes, fodiges and mozes/bexirin). Álvares also describes the Mande in great detail, relating how they form a close-knit community of families, intermarrying and spreading Islam through trade, education, the manufacture of amulets and the performance of rituals such as rain-making and healing. The tone in Part I is strongly polemical. Álvares depicts the bexirin as spongers and tricksters, who feed on the gullible and exploit their influence with the chiefs. He speaks of the bexirin as representatives of the devil and of Islam as a ‘poisonous sect’. Part II only makes fleeting references to Islam and Muslims and seems to focus mainly on traditional religiosity. A sentence such as ‘the Souso were beginning to drink the milk of the Mohammedan sect’ (Part II, Chapter ‘The province of the Souso’) may lead to the conclusion that, in the Sierra Leone estuary in the early 17th century, Islam had only just begun to spread. However, the material of Álvares’ predecessor Baltasar Barreira, who worked in the same areas a decade earlier, does not seem to substantiate this. Barreira in his writings depicts Jesuit missionary



manuel álvares

503

work in Sierra Leone as an uphill competition with Islam for the soul of Africa; according to his letters and reports, he had a number of personal hostile encounters with Muslim clerics. Remarkably, Álvares’ only account of a personal encounter with a Muslim scholar suggests a friendly atmosphere. In chapter 26, ‘Discussion of the progress of Christianity’, Álvares relates that he met a travelling Muslim cleric with whom he sat for some time and exchanged ideas. He concludes his account of the encounter with the words: ‘Then we made an agreement to become close friends until he decided to become my brother by professing the same religion.’ Significance It remains unclear why Barreira’s and Álvares’ accounts diverge so much with regard to their descriptions and assessments of Islam and Muslims in the Sierra Leone region. It is also unclear why Álvares pays so much attention to Islam and in such a polemical tone in Part I of his Ethiópia Menor and why this is virtually absent in Part II. Both matters require further research. Publications MS Lisbon, Biblioteca da Sociedade de Géografia de Lisboa – 141-C-I (about 1615) MS Lisbon, Biblioteca da Sociedade de Géografia de Lisboa – Res. 3 E-7 (about 1615) Hair, An interim translation of Manuel Álvares S.J., Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa (English trans.); African Studies Collection, University of Wisconsin; http://digital. library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AfricanStudies.Alvares01 P.E.H. Hair, ‘Sources on early Sierra Leone. (17) Alvares at Mitombo, 1611’, Africana Research Bulletin 11 (1980/1) 92-140 (Hair notes that Leon Bourdon produced a French translation of Part II of Ethiópia Menor, but does not provide a reference; the catalogues consulted give no information as to where this translation might be published) Studies Mota, ‘A missão jesuíta de Cabo Verde’ V.S. Santon, ‘Bexerins e jesuítas. Religião e comércio na Costa da Guiné (século XVII)’, Métis. História e Cultura 19 (2011) 187-213 Martha Frederiks

Walter Peyton Walter Payton; Peiton Date of Birth Second half of the 16th century Place of Birth Sutton Coldfield Date of Death Between September 1639 and 15 June 1641 Place of Death Probably Sutton Coldfield

Biography

Walter Peyton was a 17th-century British sea captain. He appears to have been the only (surviving) child of Maria Pickerton and Henricus Peyton (also spelled Peiton), a member of the Peiton family of Peiton Hall, Sutton Coldfield, and a merchant by profession. Only scant details about Walter himself are known. He was married to Dorothea, daughter of Thomas Stanton de Wolverton, and they had two daughters, Dorothy and Maria, and a son, Walter Peyton. Walter Peyton sailed for the British East India Company. Two of his ship’s journals are extant, describing the journeys made in 1613 and 1615 to the region of present-day Indonesia. Both voyages were under the command of Captain Christopher Newport and had the purpose of buying spices, especially pepper, from the region (for example, from Bantam, Sumatra and Aceh). The 1613 expedition seems to have consisted of only one ship, The Expedition, which left Gravesend in early January, anchored in India in September, and at Bantam, Java, in December that year. The ship returned to England in July 1614. The 1615 expedition consisted of a flotilla of four ships, again under the command of Newport; Peyton served as captain of The Expedition. The convoy left Gravesend in early January; on board were Sir Thomas Roe, James I’s ambassador to the Mughal Emperor Jahāngīr, and his entourage. Since it spent a considerable period of time in Socotra and India, the fleet did not reach Aceh until October 1616. It returned to England in May 1617. During this second journey, Peyton kept a journal, which has survived. It is not known whether Peyton went on any journeys other than those mentioned here. The National Archives at Kew hold Peyton’s nine-page will, drawn up in September 1639. This indicates that Peyton, by then a widower, had



walter peyton

505

become prosperous; he owned a house, Marlpitt Hall, in Sutton Coldfield, and bequeathed jewellery and substantial sums of money to his daughters, some small bequests to other family members and the remainder of his property to his son. A sentence from the prerogative court in Canterbury of 15 June 1641 indicates that Peyton had died before that date.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS London, BL – Add 19276 (1615-17; Peyton’s journal of the voyage to East India and return) MS Kew, National Archives – PROB 11/183/1 (1639; Peyton’s will) MS Kew, National Archives – PROB 11/186/337 (1641; sentence concerning Peyton) MS Kew, National Archives – E 199/45/38 (24 March 1623-23 March 1624; writ and inquisition on goods of Walter Peyton of Sutton Coldfield) Walter Payton, ‘A Journall of all principall matters passed in the twelfth voyage to the East India, observed by mee Walter Payton, in the good ship the Expedition. The captain whereof was M. Christopher Newport, being set out, anno 1612’, in S. Purchas, Purchas. His pilgrimes, in five books, 1625, London, vol. 1, pp. 488-500 Walter Peyton, ‘Voyage of Captain Walter Peyton to India, in 1615’, in S. Purchas, Purchas. His pilgrimes, in five books, 1625, London, vol. 1, pp. 528-35 Secondary J. Fetherston (ed.), The visitation of the Country of Warwick, 1619 taken by William Camden, London, 1877, pp. 379-81 R. Kerr (ed.), A general history and collection of voyages and travels, Edinburgh, 1824, vol. 9, pp. 137-65, 219-41

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Journal of Walter Peyton, voyage to East India, and return, 1615-1617 The second voyage of Captain Walter Peyton to India, in 1615 Date 1615-17 (first published in 1625) Original Language English

506

walter peyton

Description Walter Peyton’s journal describing the 1615-17 voyage to ‘India’ is a text of about 20 pages, narrating the journey of a flotilla of four ships under the command of Captain Christopher Newport from England to India and the area of present-day Indonesia. On board were Sir Thomas Roe, King James I’s ambassador to Shāh Jahāngīr of the Mughal Empire, and his entourage. Peyton’s journal was first published in an abbreviated form in Samuel Purchas’s Purchas. His pilgrimes (1625), and later reprinted a number of times in English as well as translated into Dutch. Peyton pays little attention to the journey from England to the Cape of Good Hope, but the text becomes more detailed once the ships reach the coast of East Africa. It details stopovers at the Comoro Islands, Malindi, Socotra and Persia, as well as the reception of Sir Thomas Roe in India by representatives of the Mughal court at Surat. Peyton also outlines the spice trade in the Indonesian archipelago and the commercial, political and military challenges this entailed. Noteworthy are Peyton’s observations about Islam in the Comoro Islands, his journals being among the earliest written records on the subject. Peyton narrates that the people of Mohelia (Mohéli) were ‘strict Mahomedans’, many of whom could speak and write Arabic. He also observes that they were ‘very jealous of their wives and mosques’, protecting both their sacred places and their women from strangers. When some of Peyton’s companions venture too close to a village, the women are shut away and the men threaten to kill Peyton’s companions if they come closer (Kerr, General history, p. 225). Peyton also mentions that the islands Mohelia, Hinzuan (Anjouan), Angazesia (Great Comoro) and Mayotte were ruled by an old ‘sultaness’, whose three sons served as deputy chiefs, but he does not give her name (Kerr, General history, p. 224). This remark about a female ruler in the islands is confirmed by contemporary sources, such as Pieter van den Broecke. Other sources confirm the rule of female rulers at Anjouan at a later date, the oldest known being Alimah III (c. 1676-c. 1711). Peyton’s sultaness predates Alimah III by more than 60 years. The power of the sultan, according to Peyton, was so absolute ‘that none of his people dared to sell us a single coconut without his leave’. Significance The earliest history of Islam in the Comoro islands is mainly based on archaeological evidence. Peyton’s journal is one of the first written reports on Islam there. He describes a situation in the early 17th century



walter peyton

507

in which the islands were predominantly Muslim, where people had a good command of Arabic and observed strict regulations regarding the ḥijāb. He also notes that the islands were ruled by an established lineage of sultans, among them a female, indicating the acceptance of female rulers in this predominantly Muslim setting as early as the second decade of the 17th century. Publications MS London, BL – 19276 (1615-17) Walter Peyton, ‘Voyage of Captain Walter Peyton to India, in 1615’, in Samuel Purchas, Purchas. His pilgrimes, in five books, London, 1625, vol. 1, 528-35; STC 20509 (digitalised version available through EEBO) T. Coryate (trans.), Tweede reys van Kapiteyn Walter Peyton, na OostIndien, met het schip de Expeditie, uytgerust van de Engelse Oost-Indise Maatschappy, neffens de Draak, de Leeuw en de PeperCorn, in het jaar 1615, Leiden, 1706 (Dutch trans.; repr. 1707, 1727) Walter Peyton, ‘The second voyage into the East Indies perform’d by Captain Peyton, with the expedition. Together with the Dragon, Lion and Pepper Corn, under the command of Captain Keeling’, in J. Harris, Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca, or, A complete collection of voyages and travels, consisting of above six hundred of the most authentic writers, London, 1705, vol. 1, 149-53; ESTC N010531 (digitalised version available through ECCO) Walter Peyton, ‘Some observations of Capt. Peyton’s concerning the English and Portuguese trade, factories and acquisititions, in the East Indies’, in J. Harris, Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca, or, A complete collection of voyages and travels, consisting of above four hundred of the most authentick writers, London, 1705, vol. 1, 153-4; ESTC N010531 (digitalised version available through ECCO) Walter Peyton, The voyage of Walter Peyton to India, in 1615, Edinburgh, 1811-17 Walter Peyton, ‘The voyage of Walter Peyton to India, in 1615’, in R. Kerr (ed.), A general history and collection of voyages and travels, Edinburgh, 1824, vol. 9, 219-41 Martha Frederiks

Pedro Páez Date of Birth 1564 Place of Birth Olmedo de las Cebollas, Spain Date of Death 25 May 1622 Place of Death Gorgora, Ethiopia

Biography

Pedro Páez Xaramillo, one of the most notable members of the Society of Jesus, was born in Olmedo de las Cebollas in 1564 to a noble Castilian family. On 18 June 1584, he was admitted into the Society of Jesus at the house of probation in Villarejo de Fuentes, Cuenca. From about 1584 to 1587, he studied philosophy at the Jesuit college of Belmonte, Cuenca, where he established a friendship with one of his teachers, the Navarrese theologian Tomás de Ituren, who encouraged him to pursue further studies at Coimbra. In 1587, he set sail for Goa; a year later, the Jesuit provincial in India, Pedro Martínez, chose to send him and his Catalan companion, Antonio Monserrate, to Ethiopia to save the dying Catholic project there. Soon afterwards he was ordained as a priest and took the profession of the four vows. A significant part of the information Páez managed to gather about Muslims and Islam derives from his years of captivity in the Arabian Peninsula after his first failed attempt to reach Ethiopia. Together with Monserrate, he travelled to Diu via Chaul and Baçaim, and at the end of 1589 they finally set sail for Zaylaʿ from Muscat, then a Portuguese port. However, on 14 February 1590, soon after their ship had left the Khuriya Muriya Islands, they were captured by Arabs from Dhofar and were taken to al-Balīd. From there they were taken to the Kathīrī sultan, ʿUmar ibn Badr Bī Ṭuwayriq, and then by boat to the Ḥaḍramawt coast, where they continued on foot to Tarīm and Haynīn. After four months in Haynīn under the custody of Sultan ʿUmar, the Ottoman pasha summoned them to Ṣanʿāʾ, which they reached by crossing the Ḥaḍramawt desert and Ma’rib. They remained in Ṣanʿāʾ until 1596, when they were taken to Mokha. There they were ransomed by Banyan merchants, and returned in late 1596 to Goa, where Monserrate died shortly afterwards. In Goa, Páez studied theology for a short time at St Paul’s College and worked at the Jesuit residences of Assalona (Salsette) and Chaul. In



pedro páez

509

1600, he moved to Diu, where he helped found the new Jesuit residence. Finally, on 2 March 1603, he managed to set sail for Ethiopia aboard a Banyan ship, reaching the coast of Massawa in May that year. Páez’s arrival in Ethiopia began the second and most fruitful period of the Jesuit mission in the country. Soon after his arrival, he was joined by four other Portuguese Jesuit colleagues. His initially prudent strategy consisted of obtaining the support of the small Ethiopian-Portuguese community that dated back to the 1540s, and approaching the most powerful and leading figures in the kingdom. Thus, he met Emperor Zä Dəngəl (r. 1603-4) shortly before the latter’s death; he then established close ties with Emperor Susənyos (r. 1607-32) and his brother Śəʿəlä Krəstos. Páez subsequently became the central figure responsible for introducing Catholicism into the emperor’s court and to the local nobility. Throughout the second decade of the 17th century, he was the closest adviser to Susənyos in religious and political affairs of major importance. Páez was a key figure in Emperor Susənyos’s confirmation of Jesuit possession of lands in Gorgora, in a peninsula on the shores of Lake Ṭana close to the royal camp of Dänqäz. The emperor later granted the Jesuits more lands in Qwälläla, in the province of Goğğam, which was governed by his brother Śəʿəlä Krəstos. Páez encouraged theological discussions among the representatives of the local Orthodox Church, utilising texts consecrated by Ethiopian tradition to demonstrate the fundamental conformity of their contents with Catholic doctrine. He also provided unique contributions to the construction of the first architectural projects of the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia. Among his credited works is the initiative to build a palace for the emperor in Gorgora in 1614, as well as the construction of the first European-style church. He became ill with a high fever and died in Gorgora in 1622. Páez possessed a cosmopolitan erudition that was due, among other things, to a great aptitude for the study of diverse languages. As he travelled throughout the Orient, he learned languages as others gather impressions: ‘I am currently learning Persian’, he wrote in one of his letters from Baçaim, where he prepared to set off for Ethiopia through Hormuz. During his captivity on the shores of the Red Sea, he attempted to learn to read and write Arabic. He also apparently managed to obtain some knowledge of Hebrew from Jewish fellow captives. Once in Ethiopia, he seemingly had no significant difficulty learning Amharic and Gəʿəz, which allowed him to translate religious works into Portuguese and preach with relative success.

510

pedro páez

Curiosity about other cultures was in line with Páez’s missionary spirit. From the moment he arrived in Ethiopia, he began to acquire a deep knowledge of the land and its customs, and the Ethiopian languages. He wrote numerous letters to relatives, friends and Jesuits in Europe and India, most of which have been included in volume 11 of Camillo Beccari’s monumental Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX; other writings remain unpublished in the district archive of Braga in Portugal. However, his most important contribution to the historiographical field is Historia da Etiópia.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Braga, Arquivo Distrital de Braga – 779, Cartas Annais das Missões da Etiopia, fols 152-154v Pedro Páez, ‘Lettere scrita d’Etiopia al M.R.P. Mutio Vitalleschi Generale della Compagnia di Giesù l’anno 1617’, in Lorenzo d. Pozze ed., Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa et Etiopia: scrite al M.R.P Generale della Compagnia di Giesu negli anni 1615, 1616, 1617, 1618, 1619, Naples, 1621, 138-47 Pedro Páez, ‘Lettera annua della missione d’Etiopia l’anno 1619’, in Lorenzo delle Pozze (ed.), Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa et Etiopia: scrite al M.R.P Generale della Compagnia di Giesu negli anni 1615, 1616, 1617, 1618, 1619, Naples, 1621, 148-72 B. Tellez, Historia geral de Etiopia a Alta ou Abassia do Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os padres da Companhia de Iesus. Composta na mesma Ethiopia pelo Padre Manoel d’Almeyda, natural de Vizeu, Provincial e Visitador, que foy na India. Abraviada com nova releycam, e methodo, pello Padre Balthazar Tellez, Natural de Lisboa, Provincial da Provincia Lusitana: ambos da mesma Companhia, Coimbra, 1660 B. Alcazar, Chrono-historia de la Compania de Jesus en la provincia de Toledo. Decada V, [c. 1710], Madrid: Universidad Complutense, Biblioteca Histórica, Ms. 559, ch. 5 C. Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, 14 vols, Rome, 1903-17 Secondary A. Martínez d’Alòs Moner, Envoys of a human God. The Jesuit mission in Ethiopia, 1557-1632, Leiden, 2015, pp. 96-117 A. Martínez d’Alòs Moner, art. ‘Páez, Pedro’, in S. Uhlig and A. Bausi (eds), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2010, vol. 3, pp. 89-90



pedro páez

511

M. Alfonso Mola and C. Martínez Shaw, ‘Pedro Páez y la misión jesuita en Etiopía en el contexto de la unión de las coronas de España y Portugal’, in VV. AA, ed., Conmemoración del IV Centenario de la llegada del Sacerdote Español Pedro Páez a Etiopía: Actas del seminario internacional celebrado en Addis Abeba del 9 al 11 de diciembre de 2003, Madrid, 2007, 47-67 H. Pennec, ‘Pedro Páez: ¿Arquitecto, albañil, carpintero?’, in VV. AA, ed., Conmemoración del IV Centenario de la llegada del Sacerdote Español Pedro Páez a Etiopía: Actas del seminario internacional celebrado en Addis Abeba del 9 al 11 de diciembre de 2003, Madrid, 2007, 113-23 H. Pennec and M.J. Ramos, art. ‘Pedro Páez 1564-1622’, in J. Speake (ed.), Literature of travel and exploration. An encyclopaedia, New York, 2003, vol. 2, pp. 908-10 J. Reverte, Dios, el Diablo y la aventura. La historia de Pedro Páez, el español que descubrió el Nilo Azul, Barcelona, 2001 H. Pennec, ‘La mission Jésuite en Éthiopie au temps de Pedro Paez (1583-1622) et ses rapports avec le pouvoir éthiopien’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 36 (1992) 77-115; 37 (1993) 135-65; 38 (1994) 139-81 N. Trozzi, ‘L’influenza di Alessandro Valignani sul pensiero di Pero Paez’, Africa [Rome] 47 (1992) 587-94 G. Beshah and M. Wolde Aregay, The question of the union of the churches in Luso-Ethiopian relations (1500-1632), Lisbon, 1964, pp. 69-87 P. Tacchi Venturi, ‘Pietro Paez: Apostolo dell’Abissinia al principio del sec. XVII’, La Civilità Cattolica 3 (1905) 560-81 P. Andrade, ‘P. Pedro Paez llamado apóstol de Etiopía’, in Varones ilustres de la Compañía de Jesús, Bilbao, 1889, vol. 2, pp. 472-507 C.T. Beke, ‘Mémoire justificatif en réhabilitation des pères Pierre Paëz et Jérôme Lobo, missionaires en Abyssinie, en ce qui concerne leurs visites à la source de l’Abaï (le Nil) et à la cataracte d’Alata’, Bulletin della Société de Géographie de Paris ser. 3, 9 (1848) 145-86, 209-39

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations História da Etiópia, ‘History of Ethiopia’ Date 1621 Original Language Portuguese Description Pedro Páez composed História da Etiópia in the early 17th century. In 1615, he began gathering the material for this work, which started as an attempt to refute the treatise – riddled with errors and fanciful elements – that the Dominican Luis de Urreta had produced some years earlier.

512

pedro páez

Páez’s endeavour became a pioneering work in Ethiopian historiography and ethnography. Besides being a first-hand testimony to the events of the time, it also contained translated fragments of Ethiopian religious works and royal chronicles. História da Etiópia was dedicated to the General of the Order in 1622, sometime before Páez’s death. Like the works of other Jesuits living in Ethiopia at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, Páez’s history in the main describes ritual, liturgical, social and political aspects related to the Church and the Kingdom of Ethiopia, which were the main objectives of his missionary activity. It does not contain any systematic treatment of either Islam or Muslims living in the Horn of Africa or around the Red Sea. Generally speaking, Páez’s descriptions of Islam and of Muslims are mostly ‘impressions’ derived from random contacts during his journeys and undertakings, rather than the product of focused reflection. In a general introduction to the Kingdom of Ethiopia, in which he makes no ethnic distinctions, Páez points out that the peoples who inhabit the country are many and very different, and can be listed as four: Christians, Moors, Jews and Gentiles, adding that all of them coexist in most regions. One of Páez’s most noteworthy references to Islam is his historical treatment of the events that occurred in the 1530s and 1540s. He gives an extensive and detailed account of the well-known episode in which 400 Portuguese soldiers helped the crumbling Kingdom of Ethiopia to free itself from Islamic dominance and restore Christian sovereignty. In 1541, under the command of Christovão da Gama, the Portuguese played a leading role in tipping the scales against the Muslim armies of Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī (Aḥmed Grañ), who had been occupying Ethiopia since 1528. Writing more than 70 years after these events, Páez extols the Portuguese, and Christovão da Gama in particular, who had declared before the Ethiopian empress that ‘all of them were resolved to die for the Holy Faith of Christ in defence of his kingdom’. This account, extending over dozens of pages, is mainly based on the chronicles of Miguel de Castanhoso and João Bermudes, as well as on oral traditions collected by Páez himself. Before the development of the Jesuit mission, these events portray the natural alliance between the Portuguese and Ethiopians because of their shared faith and against their common rivals the ‘Moors’, Ethiopian Muslims and allies and vassals of the Ottomans. In addition, there is important first-hand information about Islam and the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula in Páez’s account of his years in captivity. This is found in book 3, chs 15-21 of História da Etiópia, which were written almost 30 years after the events themselves.



pedro páez

513

Páez and his companion Antonio Monserrate set sail from Goa in February 1589. Unable to secure a captain who would take them to Massawa on the Red Sea, they changed their plans and attempted to make the journey through Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. They were warned in Hormuz that such a route would be complicated, so they decided to embark instead for Zaylaʿ on the African coast in the Gulf of Aden, but they were captured by Arabs from Dhofar. Páez remarks that these men responded with anger when they discovered devotional images of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene among the Jesuits’ belongings: ‘They turned away their faces and started to curse to show themselves more observant of their accursed sect, which condemns the worship and painting of images’. Páez recounts their journey as they are taken through many desert villages and towns. When they arrived in the holy city of Tarīm in the Yemen, a centre of Islamic teaching and the burial place of many saints, they were given a hostile reception by the people and were called cafarûm (kāfirūn), which Páez says means ‘lawless man’ in Arabic. The text also tells of the encounter in Haynīn with the sultan, ʿUmar ibn Badr Bī Ṭuwayriq, and how the ‘Moors’ consumed a beverage called câhua (Arabic: qahwa, coffee), made from water boiled with the rind of a fruit called bunn. This is one of the first mentions by a European of the consumption of coffee in the Arabian Peninsula. Surprisingly, maybe, coffee consumption in Ethiopia at the start of the 17th century went unnoticed by Páez and other Jesuits. Páez gives his impressions of the Ḥaḍramawt, describing the rituals and customs of the Arabian people and comments on certain parallels he finds with other traditions: when they are outside their home, women cover themselves with a white cloth and their faces with a black veil, like nuns; some funerary customs are the same as those of ancient Israel; the dead are buried in fields not mosques; the people declare that God has no son and quote the Qur’an: ‘God generates not, nor is He generated’ (Q 112:3). Páez perceives that the people of Ḥaḍramawt are profoundly devout, and says that they commonly exclaim Ala Mahamêd, which he says means ‘God Mahamêd’ (as Beckingham and Serjeant suggest, perhaps he misheard the invocation ṣalli ʿalā Muḥammad, ‘God bless Muhammad’). Equally mistaken seems to be his claim that the person in charge of the mosque is the one who calls to prayer at dawn, midday, and nightfall. The Jesuit Manuel de Almeida repeated this error some years later, when he said that the cazis (qadi) recites from the Alcorão three times a day.

514

pedro páez

Páez and Monserrate are taken from the Ḥaḍramawt when the Yemeni Pasha demands that the king of Dhofar, his vassal, should hand over the prisoners, suspecting the Jesuits of being spies. In Ṣanʿāʾ, they are placed in the custody of Turkish authorities, who harass and humiliate them but also allow them to worship freely. Later, the wife of the Turkish Pasha intercedes on their behalf, and they are granted their freedom and allowed to travel to Jerusalem with the courier who was travelling to Constantinople. However, Páez tells of the intervention of a merchant ‘who, being Albanian, harboured great hatred for Christians’. This man told the pasha that the Jesuits were very rich men and held in high esteem by the Portuguese, who would ransom them for up to 5,000 cruzados. This caused the Jesuits’ captivity to be prolonged for more than a year and a half. Páez was extremely keen on theological debates. His writings show that throughout his almost 20-year stay in Ethiopia he particularly promoted debate with his rivals, Orthodox monks and priests, and his rhetorical skills, befitting a university-educated Jesuit, were apparently well-appreciated by the emperors of Ethiopia. He dedicates several pages of his work to detailing long debates that he and Monserrate had with the Pasha’s qadi before a large audience in the final period of their captivity, regarding the truth or falsehood of the Christian and Muslim holy books. ‘How could it be that God had a son?’, asks the qadi, to which Monserrate replied with an explanation of the Persons of the Trinity. The qadi declares that if such was the Christian understanding, then there is no objection to it. However, the debate continued on further occasions. The qadi inquires, ‘Is the name of Muḥammad in the Gospels?’ When Páez responds that it is not, the qadi says accusingly, ‘You had it removed.’ To support his position, Páez refers to the Gospels of ancient Christians, who had preserved the same books since the time of the Apostles, and in which Muḥammad’s name did not appear. The discussion then turns to the meaning of the term Paraclete (Arabic: Fārāqlīta) in the Gospel of John, which the qadi says refers to Muḥammad. Páez replies that the Fārāqlīta is the same as Rahalcudûz (Rūḥ al-Quddūs), the Holy Spirit, ‘and Christ promised Him and sent Him to his disciples ten days after He ascended to heaven, when they were all together in Jerusalem waiting for Him, as Christ had commanded them’. Páez himself also asks questions and raises issues about passages in the Qur’an. He quotes Q 9:28, according to which Mary was the sister of Moses and Aaron, and argues that, since there were more than fifteen



pedro páez

515

hundred years between them, this proves that the Qur’an is not from God. Just as he did years later in his debates with Ethiopian Christian scholars, he accuses his opponents of a lack of method and order in their debating, inconsistency in their arguments, and a disorganised shift from one subject to another. Significance Páez’s work sheds light mainly on the ethnographic and historical aspects of the Muslim cultures with which he came into contact; it exhibits only a slight interest in the doctrinal aspects of Islam. Nonetheless, his contribution regarding cities such as Tarīm and Haynin in the Arabian Peninsula are undoubtedly outstanding, coming from one of the few figures who travelled through the Wādī Ḥaḍramawt to Ma⁠ʾrib and Ṣanʿāʾ before the 19th century. Regarding Islam in the Horn of Africa, Páez’s main contribution is in summing up the historical figure of Christovão da Gama and his fight against the Muslim invasion. Here, Islam stands out for its belligerent character and the challenge it represents as a rival to the continuity of a Christian kingdom that is built upon spilled Catholic and Portuguese blood. Despite remaining unpublished for several centuries, Páez’s book was the source for works by other Jesuits. It was used by two near-contemporaries, Manoel de Almeida (1581-1646), whose work was not published until the early 20th century, and Balthazar Tellez (1595-1675), whose Historia geral de Ethiopia (1660) was an abridgement of Almeida’s work, thus a recasting of Páez’s original (Páez, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-2). Writers such as Athanasius Kircher and Kaspar Schott used Páez’s descriptions of the sources of the Blue Nile, which are still considered the first reliable sources about this important waterway. Publications MS Rome, Archivum Romanum S.I. (ARSI) – Goa 42 (1620s) MS Braga, Arquivo Distrital de Braga – 778 (late 17th century) Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales, vols 2 and 3 Pedro Páez, História da Etiópia. Reprodução do códice noevo inédito da Biblioteca pública de Braga, ed. L. Teixeira, Pôrto, 1945-6 (3-volume edition based on the Braga MS) Pedro Páez, História da Etiópia, ed. I. Boavida, H. Pennec and M.J. Ramos, Lisbon, 2008 (critical edition based on a detailed comparison of the Goa and Braga MSS)

516

pedro páez

Pedro Páez, Historia de Etiopía, ed. I. Boavida, H. Pennec and M.J. Ramos, introduction by J. Reverte, trans. N. González Adáne, Madrid, 2009 (Spanish trans.) C.J. Tribe (trans.), Pedro Páez’s History of Ethiopia, 1622, ed. I. Boavida, H. Pennec and M.J. Ramos, London, 2011 (English trans.) Pedro Páez, Historia de Etiopía, ed. R. Mejía, trans. J. Inarejos, Coruna, 2014 (Spanish trans.) Studies Tribe, Pedro Páez’s History of Ethiopia, pp. 1-56 L. Cohen, ‘El Padre Pedro Páez S.J. frente a la interpretación bíblica etíope. La controversia sobre “cómo llenar una brecha mítica” ’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 164 (2013) 397-419 L. Cohen, ‘An Ethiopian interpretation of the story of the Leviathan and its connection to Rabbinic exegesis’, Pe’amim 120 (2009) 93-116 (in Hebrew) M. Wolde Aregay, ‘El conocimiento de Pedro Páez de la teología de la Iglesia Ortodoxa etíope’, in M.W. Aregay et al. (eds), Conmemoración del IV Centenario de la llegada del Sacerdote Español Pedro Páez a Etiopía, Madrid, 2007, 69-91 L. Cohen, ‘Who are the Sons of God? A Jesuit-Ethiopian controversy on Genesis 6:2’, in D. Nosnitsin et al. (eds), Varia Aethiopica. In memoriam Sevir Chernetsov (1943-2005), St Petersburg, 2005, 35-42 H. Pennec, Des Jésuites au Royaume du Prêtre Jean, Paris, 2003, pp. 241-306 E. Sanceau, Em Demanda do Preste João, trans. J. Francisco dos Santos, Porto, 1983, pp. 191-219 C.F. Beckingham and R.B. Sargeant, ‘A journey by two Jesuits from Dhufār to Sanʿā in 1590’, The Geographical Journal 115 (1950) 194-207 A. Kammerer, ‘Le plus ancient voyage d’un occidental au Hadramout [1590]. Le P. Pero Paez de la Compagnie de Jésus’, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie d’Égypte 18 (1933) 143-67 F.M. Esteves Pereira, ‘A fonte do Nilo Azul. Descrição do Padre Pêro Paes, da Companhia de Jesus’, Revista Portuguesa Colonial Marítima 16/95-8 (1905) 193-200 Leonardo Cohen

Richard Jobson Date of Birth Unknown; probably last quarter of the 16th century Place of Birth Unknown; probably England or Ireland Date of Death Unknown; after 1626 Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Richard Jobson was an agent of the Guinea Company who traded for seven months on the Gambia River in the years 1620-1. Apart from his journey to Guinea, few details of his life are known. Jobson was probably born in the last quarter of the 16th century, possibly in England; Gamble and Hair also suggest Ireland as a conceivable place of birth (Gamble and Hair, ‘Introduction’, pp. 38-9). From his writings it can be deduced that Jobson had received some formal education, possibly at a grammar school. The 1620-1 voyage to the Gambia River appears to have been his first journey in the service of the Guinea Company. On his return to England, Jobson published his travelogue under the title The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra (1623). He appears to have embarked on another voyage to Guinea in 1624 or 1625, but the expedition seems to have been abandoned as early as Dover. In 1626 or 1627, Jobson wrote a petition to Charles I, pleading – in vain – for the resumption of trade on the Gambia River. The petition is the last known record of Richard Jobson’s life.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary D. Perfect, Historical dictionary of the Gambia, Lanham, 2016, 245-6. C. Fyfe, art. ‘Jobson, Richard ( fl. 1620-1623)’, ODNB D.P. Gamble and P.E.H. Hair, ‘Introduction’, in The discovery of River Gambra (1623) by Richard Jobson, ed. D.P. Gamble and P.E.H. Hair, London, 1999, 1-72 J.K. Laughton, art. ‘Jobson, Richard ( fl. 1620-1623)’, DNB

518

richard jobson

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra Date 1623 Original Language English Description The golden trade is an account of Richard Jobson’s seven months’ sojourn along the Gambia River in the years 1620 and 1621. The book was published in 1623, shortly after he returned to England, under the full title The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra and the golden trade of the Aethiopians. Also, the commerce with a great blacke merchant, called Bukor Sano, and his report of the houses covered with gold, and other strange observations for the good of our owne country. Set down as they were collected in travellings, part of the yeares, 1620 and 1621. The book is about 55,000 words long (119 pages in the Gamble and Hair edition) and appears to have been based on a daily journal kept by Jobson during his journey. The original journal is no longer extant, but two excerpts of about 5,000 and 10,000 words respectively have survived in Samuel Purchas’ multi-volume Purchas his pilgrimes (1625). In The golden trade, Jobson presents his material thematically. He gives a detailed description of the Gambia River, the people living on its banks and the flora and fauna. It is noteworthy that Jobson mentions his African guides by name, a rare occurrence in 17th-century European travelogues on Africa. Throughout the text, Jobson makes intermittent observations on religious matters, such as the presence of Muslim religious leaders at the court and the importance attached by non-Muslim peoples to amulets made by marabouts. More significant than these short observations, however, is Jobson’s lengthy exposé entitled ‘The discourse of their Maribuckes or religious men’ (Gamble and Hair, Golden trade, pp. 122-36). In about 14 pages, Jobson portrays the religious life in the town of Setico (Sutukoba, in present-day Gambia), which he describes as a holy place, a place of pilgrimage, populated exclusively by marabouts and their slaves. Jobson appears to have spent an extended period of time here. The text consists of material he gathered from his informants as well as his personal observations, commended by Gamble and Hair for their ‘freshness’ and identified as deriving ‘largely from his ignorance about the religion’ (Gamble and Hair, Golden trade, p. 40).



richard jobson

519

Jobson’s account includes detailed descriptions of ablutions and prayer rituals, as well as eye-witness accounts of the funeral-rites for the chief marabout of Setico and the performance of male circumcision. He also describes, for example, the writings and learning of the marabouts, their education system and the value they attach to literacy, their abstinence from alcohol, their itinerant lifestyle, their immunity in intertribal wars, their manufacture of amulets and their keenness to acquire paper. In addition to his portrayal of Islamic life in Setico, Jobson’s text includes observations regarding the differences and commonalities between Christianity and Islam. As commonalities Jobson identifies the shared belief in monotheism as well as shared knowledge of figures such as Adam and Eve, Noah and Moses. These observations led Jobson to the erroneous conclusion that the Gambian marabouts were acquainted with the Old Testament. The main difference between Christianity and Islam, as he saw it, was the Muslim belief in Jesus as a prophet, rather than as the Son of God. As far as is known Jobson did not speak any of the indigenous languages or Portuguese, and his information was probably mediated by translators and/or informants. In general, Jobson’s descriptions of Islam and Muslims in Guinea are sympathetic and respectful; they testify to a genuine curiosity about Islam and the lives of the Gambian marabouts. He seems to have been courteously received by the Muslim leadership in Setico and was allowed to attend intimate life-cycle rituals such the funeral for a chief marabout and the performance of male circumcision. Significance The significance of Jobson’s text is threefold. First, it gives rich, detailed information about the life and practices of 17th-century rural Muslim communities along the Gambia River. Second, it seems to indicate that, even in West African Muslim communities that had had little or no contact with Christians or Christianity, there was knowledge of anti-Christian polemics. Jobson mentions that the marabouts of Setico spoke with him about the difference between Christian and Muslim views about Jesus, and did so with arguments such as: ‘God cannot be seen’, ‘no one can see God and live’ and ‘God does not have knowledge of woman’. Third, Jobson’s text also gives an insight into how the Setico Muslim community endeavoured to make theological sense of the fact that a people who clearly had erroneous religious opinions were richly blessed and superior in knowledge and skills: ‘for amongst themselves a prophesy remaines, that they shall be subdued, and remaine subject to a white people’. Only

520

richard jobson

after the period of subjugation had passed and ‘the fullnesse of time is come’ would they too receive similar blessings (Gamble and Hair, Golden trade, p. 130). Publications Richard Jobson, The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra and the golden trade of the Aethiopians. Also, the commerce with a great blacke merchant, called Bukor Sano, and his report of the houses covered with gold, and other strange observations for the good of our owne country. Set down as they were collected in travellings, part of the yeares, 1620 and 1621, London, 1623 (repr. Amsterdam, 1968); STC 14623 (digitalised version available through EEBO) S. Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his pilgrimes, London, 1625, vol. 1, book 7, ch. 1, pp. 921-6; book 9, ch. 13, pp. 1567-76 A. Schilling and R. Jobson, Kort dag-verhaal van de zee-togt na Suratte en Jasques, in de Golf van Persiën, gedaan in het Jaar 1620: onder gesag van Andrew Schilling, met 4 kloeke scheepen: als mede de scheeps-togt van Richard Jobson, na de rivier Gambra; gedaan met 2 scheepen, waar van het eerste genoemt wierd, de Sion, groot 200 ton, en de St. Jan, groot 50 ton. in het jaar 1620, Leiden, 1707 (Dutch trans. of extracts using Purchas); Koninklijke Bibliotheek 229 N 27 [6] (digitalised version available through Google Books) Richard Jobson, ‘A voyage for the discovery of the River Gambra, and the golden trade of Tombûto, in the year 1620 and 1621. By captain Richard Jobson’, in T. Kitchen, G. Child, N. Parr, J. Green and T. Ashley (eds), A new general collection of voyages and travels. Consisting of the most esteemed relations, which have hitherto been published in any language; comprehending everything remarkable of its kind, in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, London, 1745, vol. 1, pp. 174-88; ESTC T039853 (digitalised version available through ECCO) Richard Jobson, The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra and the golden trade of the Aethiopians, ed. C.G. Kingsley, Teignmouth, 1904 (repr. Whitefish MT, 2010) Richard Jobson, The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra and the golden trade of the Aethiopians, ed. D.B. Thomas, London, 1932 Richard Jobson, The golden trade; or, A discovery of the River Gambra, and the golden trade of the Aethiopians, ed. W. Rodney, London, 1968



richard jobson

521

D.P. Gamble and P.E.H. Hair (eds), The discovery of River Gambra (1623) by Richard Jobson, London, 1999 Studies N. Myers and L. Niayesh, ‘Naming the other, claiming the other in early modern accounts of first encounters. From Mandeville to John Nicoll (1607) and Richard Jobson (1623)’, in F. Regard (ed.), British narratives of exploration. Case-studies on the self and the other, London, 2016, 29-38 Gamble and Hair, Golden trade, ‘Introduction’ E. Wolf and M.E. Korey (eds), Quarter of a millennium. The library companion of Philadelphia 1731-1981, Philadelphia PA, 1981, p. 241 Martha Frederiks

André Donelha Date of Birth 1550-60 Place of Birth Unknown; possibly Santiago Island, Cape Verde Date of Death Unknown; possibly not before 1635 Place of Death Unknown; possibly Cape Verde Islands

Biography

Almost everything that is known about André Donelha is based on his own account, which has been summarised and discussed by Avelino Teixeira da Mota (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Descrição da Serra Leoa, pp. 12-21). Donelha spent his childhood on the Island of Santiago (Cape Verde Archipelago) and was probably born there between 1550 and 1560. The surname Donelha may have either a Castilian origin (Donella) or an Italian one (Oneglia), making him a possible descendant of the first settlers of Santiago island, an assumption that is confirmed by the way he refers to the oral traditions he heard his father and other old men (antigos) recounting (Horta, ‘Evidence’, pp. 127-8). Like his father before him, Donelha travelled as a trader from Santiago to the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde between 1574 and at least 1585 (see the reconstruction of his travels by Hair in Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Descrição da Serra Leoa, pp. 28-35). Having had access to a good education, he belonged to the elite of the Cape Verde Islands and to those who during the 16th and 17th centuries were called ‘experts of the Rivers of Guinea’ (práticos dos Rios de Guiné). It is among the members of this group that we find the authors of the main accounts of the Upper Guinea Coast, written by laymen from the late 16th century and early 20s of the 17th century. He may have been a mestizo, like André Álvares de Almada, but we lack evidence to confirm this. In 1585, Donelha served as a captain of the contratadores ships (naus do trato) of the trading contract (slave trade and other merchandises) of Cape Verde (Donelha, Account of Sierra Leone, pp. 154-7). This means that, like Almada and other Cape-Verdean traders, he was not running his own business at the time. In Santiago and along the Rivers of Guinea, Donelha had friends and partners among Africans and independent merchants (against the will of the Portuguese Crown), both Portuguese and Luso-Africans. This proximity to the African



andré donelha

523

context and his respect for its rules is relevant to understanding the complexity of his relationships with Muslims and Islam. The date of his death is uncertain. His account was written in its final form in 1625, but the name ‘Donella’ shows up in two later documents, one related to the island of Fogo, Cape Verde (March 1634) and the other from Santiago (22 December of the same year). Brásio identifies the signature in the first document as Donelha’s (‘Memorial’, p. 146), though Teixeira da Mota has some doubts about this identification, which would make Donelha a resident in Fogo island at the end of a long life. According to Teixeira da Mota, the name on the second document might refer either to Donelha himself or to a relative (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Descrição da Serra Leoa, p. 18). In the latter document ‘Donella’ is named by the governor of Cape Verde as one of the two experts (práticos) who were aware that the Guinea ‘district’ included ‘all Serra Leoa’. This specific claim and also the connection between the Descrição and the governor (see below) make the identification as André Donelha most probable, meaning that he would have still been alive in 1634. The only work of André Donelha we have is an untitled account of the rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde, written in its final form in 1625. He describes the Upper Guinea coast and its rivers from Sierra Leone as far as the Senegal River, reflecting his experience as a trader in the 1570s and 80s.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary André Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625). An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), ed. A. Teixeira da Mota and P.E.H. Hair, trans. P.E.H. Hair, Lisbon, 1977, pp. 69-329 (cites all the most important early sources) André Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625). Description de la Serra Leoa et des Rios de Guiné du Cabo Verde (1625), ed. A. Teixeira da Mota and P.E.H. Hair, trans. L. Bourdon, Lisbon, 1977, pp. 69-329 A. Brásio (ed.), ‘Memorial de André Donelha a Francisco Vasconcelos da Cunha (7-1-1625)’, Monumenta Missionaria Africana. África Ocidental (1623-1650), 2nd series, Lisbon, 1979, vol. 5, 90-146 Secondary J.S. Horta, A Guiné do Cabo Verde. Produção textual e representações (1578-1684), Lisbon, 2011

524

andré donelha

J.S. Horta, ‘Evidence for a Luso-African identity in “Portuguese” accounts on “Guinea of Cape Verde” (sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)’, History in Africa 27 (2000) 99-130 M.E. Madeira Santos, As estratégicas ilhas de Cabo Verde ou a ‘fresca Serra Leoa’, uma escolha para a política de expansão portuguesa no Atlântico, Lisbon, 1988 A. Teixeira da Mota, ‘Introduction’, in Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa, pp. 1-57 (includes the most authoritative biography by Teixeira da Mota, listing the most important earlier sources; full annotation by Teixeira da Mota and Hair) A. Brásio, ‘O Memorial de André Donelha’, Studia 39 (1974) 305-6 A. Teixeira da Mota, Dois escritores quinhentistas de Cabo Verde. André Álvares de Almada e André Dornelas [sic], Luanda, 1970

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde, ‘An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde’ Memorial, ‘An account’ Date 1625 Original Language Portuguese Description André Donelha’s account has no title in the original. While A. Brásio, the second modern editor, simply uses the term Memorial to refer to the piece, following the way Donelha refers to his own writing (‘fiz um memorial’/ ‘I made memoirs’, Account of Serra Leoa, p. 70), the first editors, A. Teixeira da Mota and P.E.H. Hair, give the title Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde. An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde. Memorial was not commonly used as a title of works, but was just used to refer to the starting point to the redaction of the final piece. Hence, Teixeira da Mota’s choice of Descrição, a common title for contemporary pieces of the same kind, is justified. The rest of the title underlines the relevance of ‘Serra Leoa’ (which, in part, corresponds to the present-day Sierra Leone and Republic of Guinea) in the account. In fact, the first seven chapters of a total of 14 are devoted to ‘Serra Leoa’; one of the main goals of Donelha was to defend a CapeVerdean project of colonisation in this sub-region. Never­theless, the title chosen by Teixeira da Mota makes a spatial dissociation between ‘Serra



andré donelha

525

Leoa’ and ‘Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde’, which does not correspond either to Donelha’s perception of Guinea or to the historical unity of this region in the context of its Atlantic connections. Donelha refers to the geographical scope of his work as ‘our Guinea’ (‘o nosso Guiné’; Account of Serra Leoa, p. 70), i.e. Guinea of Cape Verde. This spatial frame, in his view as well as that of other Cape-Verdean authors of his time, included ‘Serra Leoa’. Hence, a more suitable title would be Descrição da Guiné do Cabo Verde / An account of Guinea of Cape Verde. From 1574 to at least 1585, Donelha compiled notes from his travels to the Rivers of Guinea. He gave a final form to his account in 1625 to offer it to Francisco Vasconcelos da Cunha, the governor of the Cape Verde islands, who compiled it together with other manuscript sources in his personal collection (Teixeira da Mota and Hair, Descrição da Serra Leoa, pp. 20-7). This may explain why the account did not achieve a wide circulation before the modern edition. Unlike other treatises written by ‘experts of the Rivers of Guinea’ from the 16th and 17th centuries, such as those of André Álvares de Almada and Francisco de Lemos Coelho, Donelha’s work was not related to earlier or contemporary accounts, remaining an independent primary source. His travel experience and that of other traders whom he knew from Cape Verde, as well as African and Luso-African informants, are the sole basis for his account. Donelha’s treatise has 90 pages in Teixeira da Mota and Hair’s modern edition (35 folios in the original) divided into 14 chapters. He fills over half of these with a description of ‘Serra Leoa’ in the southern part of Guinea of Cape Verde, turning to the northern part in the remaining chapters, 8 to 14. His narrative follows a general north-south direction along the Rivers of Guinea, from the Senegal River as far as the modern Bolola Channel and the Rio Grande de Buba in present-day southern Guinea Bissau. It is in this second half that the references to Islam are mainly found, though, according to what Donelha says, the Mandinka Muslim clerics (bixirĩis or sacerdotes), being also merchants, could be found in all the ports of Guinea of Cape Verde, including ‘Serra Leoa’ (Donelha, Aaccount of Serra Leoa, p. 160) where European traders met them. As in the part on ‘Serra Leoa’, Donelha gives a description of the peoples, African polities and institutions, and the trade related to them. He often displays knowledge of narratives of local oral history. In the first passage about Muslims, the Wolof (‘Jalofos’) from the Cayor-Baol polity (‘Reino dos Jalofos’; Account of Serra Leoa, pp. 281 n. 207, 283 n. 212) in present-day northern Senegal are said to have converted to Islam in about 1545, specific and useful information. To Teixeira da Mota,

526

andré donelha

considering Alvise da Mosto’s reference to mid-15th century conversions, this statement is inaccurate (Donelha, Account of Serra Leoa, p. 283 n. 211), but Donelha is talking about a later and general conversion. He uses the well-known Western formula ‘law of Muḥammad [Mafamede]’, which implied a negative judgment in Christian eyes, an attitude made evident later in the narrative, where he mentions ‘cursed Mafoma’ and ‘cursed sect of Mafoma’ (Donelha, Account of Serra Leoa, pp. 146-7, 150-1 and 160-1). Donelha makes clear that he intended to be provocative, using ‘Mafoma’ instead of ‘Maomede’ precisely because Muslims did not accept this form of the name. Nevertheless, in this first passage he underlines, without comment, that the local ruler had imposed a law of religious freedom and had forbidden all forms of religious dispute between Muslims, Christians and Jews in a trade setting (Donelha, Account of Serra Leoa, p. 128). The latter were Sephardim who had founded communities on the coast, and the information about the Baol Muslim ruler’s decision matches late-16th and early-17th century sources (Mark and Horta, Forgotten diaspora, pp. 20-1, 83-9, 100-1). The account switches between a negative image of Muslims and an everyday familiarity and even friendship with them (Donelha, Account of Serra Leoa, p. 160-1). Donelha’s attention is drawn by Mandinka traders and bixirins, a case in point being his relationship with the Mandinka Gaspar Vaz, a former slave in Santiago island, who, following the Senegambian model of flexible and multiple identities (Mark, ‘Portuguese’ style, pp. 21-7; Mark and Horta, Forgotten diaspora, pp. 52-61), was able to switch identities from Muslim to Christian in order to maintain good trading relations with Christians (Account of Serra Leoa, pp. 148-9; Horta, ‘Evidence’, p. 113; Mark, ‘Portuguese’ style, pp. 19-21; Horta, ‘O Islão nos textos portugueses’, p. 172). Mandinka are generally identified by Donelha with Muslims. He associates with Islam their cult of ‘an idol’ near the north bank of the lower Gambia River (for different interpretations see Horta, ‘O Islão nos textos portugueses’, pp. 172-9; Mota, ‘A outra cor de Mafamede’, pp. 201-4, and ‘Questões sobre o processo de islamização’, p. 347) and describes an open air mosque upriver nearby. The bixirins are the focus of a derogatory discourse as agents of proselytism and, therefore, rivals to Christians. Donelha avoids their companionship, although, by way of other Mandinka traders, he eventually dialogues with them with a mix of distrust and a certain recognition of their geographical knowledge (Donelha, Account of Serra Leoa, pp. 160-1). As well as being trading partners,



andré donelha

527

Muslim merchants and religious men who travelled across the hinterland of western Africa were invaluable informants to the Atlantic visitors (Mota, ‘A outra cor de Mafamede’, p. 148). Significance Donelha’s account is a direct source, based on personal experience, for the way Muslim and Christian traders got along with each other in late 16th and early 17th century West Africa. He shares with his Portuguese contemporaries a negative and stereotypical image of Islam and Muslims, though this is a surmountable barrier. In fact, in everyday life trade was more important than religious differences and could seal close relationships. This kind of proximity was also part of a Luso-African sociability, which matched local customs. In a Senegambian trade setting, hospitality was extended to foreign merchants such as Donelha and, irrespective of their religion, their safety was regarded as paramount. This inclusive attitude could lead African rulers to discourage religious conflicts, while fluid and contextual identities helped to develop a suitable environment for business. Publications MS Lisbon, Biblioteca da Ajuda – codex 51-IX-25, [no. 39], fols 147r-180v (7 November 1625) André Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625). An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), ed. Teixeira da Mota and Hair, trans. Hair, pp. 69-329 (Portuguese with parallel English trans., cites all the most important early sources) André Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625). Description de la Serra Leoa et des Rios de Guiné du Cabo Verde (1625), ed. Teixeira da Mota and Hair, trans. Bourdon, pp. 69-329 (Portuguese with parallel French trans.) Brásio, ‘Memorial de André Donelha’ Studies T.H. Mota, ‘Questões sobre o processo de islamização na Senegâmbia (1570-1625)’, Revista de Ciências Humanas 14 (2014) 339-55 T.H. Mota, ‘A outra cor de Mafamede. Aspectos do islamismo da Guiné em três narrativas luso-africanas (1594-1625)’, Rio de Janeiro, 2014 (MA Diss. Universidade Federal Fluminense) J. Boulègue, Les royaumes wolof dans l’espace sénégambien (XIIIe-XVIIe siècle), Paris, 2013

528

andré donelha

J.S. Horta, ‘ “Nações”, marcadores identitários e complexidades da representação étnica nas escritas portuguesas de viagem. Guiné do Cabo Verde (séculos XVI e XVII)’, Varia Historia 29 (2013) 649-75 Horta, A Guiné do Cabo Verde P. Mark and J.S. Horta, The forgotten diaspora. Jewish communities in West Africa and the making of the Atlantic world, Cambridge, 2011 P. Mark and J.S. Horta, ‘Catholics, Jews and Muslims in early seventeenth-century Guiné’, in P.D. Morgan and R.L. Kagan (eds), Atlantic diasporas. Jews, Conversos, and crypto-Jews in the age of mercantilism, 1500-1800, Baltimore MD, 2009, 170-94 L.C.F. Destro, Diferentes olhares sobre a África Negra. Uma análise etnográfica de relatos de viajantes, Rio de Janeiro, 2008 J.S. Horta, ‘O Islão nos textos portugueses: Noroeste Africano (sécs. XV-XVII). Das representações à História’, in A. Custódio Gonçalves (ed.), O Islão na África Subsariana. Actas do 6 º colóquio internacional estados, poderes e identidades na África Subsariana, Porto, 2004, 167-81 W. Hawthorne, Planting rice and harvesting slaves. Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900, Portsmouth NH, 2003 G.E. Brooks, Eurafricans in western Africa. Commerce, social status, gender, and religious observance from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, Athens OH, 2003 P. Mark, ‘Portuguese’ style and Luso-African identity. Precolonial Senegambia, sixteenth-nineteenth centuries, Bloomington IN, 2002 Horta, ‘Evidence’, pp. 99-130 C. Lopes, Kaabunké. Espaço, território e poder na Guiné – Bissau, Gâmbia e Casamance pré-coloniais, Lisbon, 1999 A. Carvalho, ‘Roteiros. Relations de voyages au début de l’époque des découvertes’, in M.A. Seixo and G. Abreu, Les récits de voyages. Typologie, historicité, Lisbon, 1998, 21-44 C. Lopes, ‘La présence islamique dans l’espace kaabunké’, in C. Lopes (ed.), Mansas, escravos, grumetes e gentio. Cacheu na encruzilhada de civilizações, Bissau, 1993, 81-97 G.E. Brooks, Landlords and strangers. Ecology, society, and trade in western Africa, 1000-1630, Boulder CO, 1993 J.S. Horta, ‘A representação do Africano na literatura de viagens, do Senegal à Serra Leoa (1453-1508)’, Mare Liberum 2 (1991) 209-339 J. Boulègue, Les Luso-africains de Sénégambie, XVIe-XIXe siècles, Lisbon, 1989



andré donelha

529

Madeira Santos, As estratégicas ilhas de Cabo Verde ou a ‘fresca Serra Leoa’ J. Boulègue, Le Grand Jolof (XIIIe-XVIe siècle), Paris, 1987 W. Rodney, A history of the Upper Guinea coast, 1545-1800, New York, 1980 Teixeira da Mota, ‘Introduction’, in Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625). An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), ed. Teixeira da Mota and Hair, trans. Hair, pp. 1-57 (includes the most authoritative biography listing the most important earlier sources; full annotation) Brásio, ‘O Memorial de André Donelha’, 305-6 A. Teixeira da Mota, Dois escritores quinhentistas de Cabo Verde. André Álvares de Almada e André Dornelas [sic], Luanda, 1970 José da Silva Horta

Alonso de Sandoval Date of Birth 7 December 1576 or 1577 Place of Birth Seville, Spain Date of Death 25 December 1652 Place of Death Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

Biography

Alonso de Sandoval was a Jesuit missionary who lived and worked in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, for most of his life. Born in Seville, he was one of the sons of Tristán Sánchez, a Spanish government official and native of Toledo who made a career for himself in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Sánchez fathered 12 children with three different women. Alonso de Sandoval was born during a period when the family was in Spain, but the details of his childhood are uncertain: Beers gives 1576 as his date of birth (‘Alonso de Sandoval’, p. 5), whilst von Germeten mentions 1577 (‘Introduction’, p. ix). It is unclear when Sánchez and his family returned to Latin America; some sources claim it was shortly after Alonso’s birth in 1577 (Pacheco, ‘El maestro de Claver’, p. 248), while others maintain it was as late as 1584 (Vila Vilar, ‘Introduction’, p. xxvii; Beers, ‘Alonso de Sandoval’, p. 5). Alonso and his siblings seem to have received the majority of their education in Lima. Most sources state that he and his brothers studied at the prestigious Jesuit College of San Pablo in Lima, whereas some, such as Fajardo (Los Jesuitos, p. 286) believe they were educated at the College of San Martin. Alonso entered the Jesuit novitiate on 30 June 1593. A further six of Sánchez’s children also pursued a religious vocation. In 1605, Sandoval was appointed to the newly established Jesuit College in Cartagena de Indias, where he worked for the remainder of his life. In the early 17th century, Cartagena served as an important slave-trading hub. Estimates based on Sandoval’s work conjecture that between 1595 and 1640, about 135,000 slaves passed through Cartagena’s market (Un tratado sobre la esclavitud, p. 18). Most of them were destined for labour in the mines or on the plantations; others were purchased to work as pearl divers. Partly out of compassion, partly out of evangelistic zeal to save souls, Sandoval became involved with Cartagena’s African community,



alonso de sandoval

531

convinced that ‘in Christ’s robes, the black and white threads are intertwined, and the souls of blacks are as important as those of the whites’ (Treatise on slavery, p. 8). In the early 17th century, Africans and people of African descent (both free and enslaved) formed about 70% of the city’s estimated 10,000 inhabitants (von Germeten, ‘Introduction’, p. x). Aiming to save African souls through baptism, Sandoval organised catechism classes in the vernacular and engaged African converts as translators. Over the years, he expanded his ministry to include the thousands of enslaved Africans who arrived on the slave ships every year. His pupil and fellow Jesuit Pedro Claver was canonised in 1888 for his ministry among enslaved Africans in Cartagena. On the basis of his experiences of ministering to Africans, Sandoval wrote his Naturaleza, policía sagrada i profana, costumbres i ritos, disciplina i catecismo evangélico de todos etíopes, better known under its Latin title De instauranda Aethiopum salute (1627). An expanded version of the work was published in 1647. Apart from De instauranda Aethiopum salute, Sandoval also authored other, less renowned, works, including Historia de la vida del P. Francisco Javier (1619). A number of his reports and letters have also been preserved. In 1652, Sandoval fell victim to an epidemic in Cartagena, and he died on 25 December of that year.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Rome, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu – R.N. and Q. 4, fols 117, 140 MS Rome, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu – R.N. and Q. 3, Catálogos: 1610-1651 MS Madrid, Academia de la Historia de Madrid – Archivo inédito Uriarte-Lecina Papeletas: Sandoval, Alonso. ‘P. Alonso de Sandoval de la Compañía de Jésus’ Secondary Alonso de Sandoval, Treatise on slavery, ed. and trans. N. von Germeten, Indianapolis IN, 2008 N. von Germeten, ‘Introduction’, in Alonso de Sandoval, Treatise on slavery, ix-xxx J. del Rey Fajardo, Los Jesuitos en Cartagena de Indias 1604-1767, Bogotá, 2004, pp. 286-9 R.J. Morgan, ‘Jesuit confessors, African slaves and the practice of confession in seventeenth-century Cartagena’, in K. Jackson Lualdi and A.T. Thayer (eds), Penitence in the age of Reformations, Aldershot, 2000, pp. 222-39

532

alonso de sandoval

M.E. Beers, ‘Alonso de Sandoval. Seventeenth-century merchant of the Gospel’, prize-winning essay 1997, Kislak Foundation; http://www.kislakfoundation. org/prize/199702.html Alonso de Sandoval, Un tratado sobre la esclavitud, ed. E. Vila Vilar, Madrid, 1987 E. Vila Vilar, ‘Introduction’, in Alonso de Sandoval, Un tratado sobre la esclavitud, vi-xxxvii V.P. Franklin, ‘Alonso de Sandoval and the Jesuit conception of the negro’, Journal of Negro History 58 (1973) 349-60 J.M. Pacheco, ‘El maestro de Claver. P. Alonso de Sandoval’, Revista Javeriana 42 (1954) 80-9, 146-55 J.M. Pacheco, Los Jesuitos en Colombia, Bogotá, 1959, vol. 1, pp. 248-68 E.T. Salmadano, Los antiguos jesuitas en Perú. Biografias y apuntes para su historia, Lima, 1882, pp. 364-5

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations De instauranda Aethiopum salute, ‘How to restore the salvation of the blacks’ Naturaleza, policía sagrada i profana, costumbres i ritos, disciplina i catecismo evangélico de todos Etí­opes, ‘The natural, the sacred and the profane customs and the rites, discipline and evangelical catechism of all Ethiopians’ Date 1627; second expanded edition 1647 Original Language Spanish Description Naturaleza, policía sagrada i profana, costumbres i ritos, disciplina i catecismo evangélico de todos etíopes (‘The natural, the sacred, and profane customs and the rites, discipline and evangelical catechism of all Ethiopians’), better known under its Latin title De instauranda Aethiopum salute (‘How to restore the salvation of the blacks’), is an instruction manual for priests working among enslaved Africans. The work was first published in 1627 and is based on Alonso de Sandoval’s personal experiences of working among enslaved Africans in Cartagena de Indias, expanded with material from theological and ethnographical works. Beers (‘Alonso de Sandoval’, p. 13) suggests that Sandoval may have carried out research for his book in the library in Lima, during an extended stay related to



alonso de sandoval

533

administrative matters during the period 1617-19. Both von Germeten and Beers point to the influence of José de Acosta’s De procurande Indorum salute (1588) on Sandoval’s book (von Germeten, ‘Introduction’, p. xviii; Beers, ‘Alonso de Sandoval’, p. 5). An expanded, two-volume edition of the work was published in 1647 under the title De instauranda Aethiopum salute. Historia de Aethiopa, naturaleza, policia sagrada y profana, costumbres, ritos y cathechismo evangelico de todos los Aethiopes conque se restaura la salud de sus almas. Dividida en dos tomos: illustrados de nuevo en esta segunda impresion con cosas curiosas y Indice muy copioso por el P. Alonso de Sandoval, de la Compañia de Jesus, natural de Toledo. Sandoval died before completing an intended third edition. All 20th-century editions and translations are based on the 1627 text, which was widely circulated; copies of the 1647 publication are rare. The 1627 edition takes 334 pages, the 1647 edition 520 pages. De instauranda Aethiopum salute is divided into four parts. Part 1 presents an overview of the four main regions of origin of the slaves brought to Cartagena in the early 17th century, these being Senegambia, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Luanda. As Sandoval never visited Africa, his descriptions probably draw on ethnographic and missionary material available to him, elaborated with information gained from sailors and slaves. Part 1 briefly charts the political and religious history of these areas in western Africa, and culminates in a detailed outline of physical characteristics (e.g. tribal marks, hair-styles, piercings) of the main groups of people from the regions. By listing these characteristics, Sandoval intended to aid priests who were ministering to the enslaved in identifying their ethnic origin, thus simplifying the process of finding interpreters who could facilitate communication with the slaves, in some cases when they were on the verge of death. Part 2 is a description of the abuses and sufferings endured by the enslaved, followed by admonitions to Christian masters to treat their slaves humanely. This part of De instauranda is widely known among contemporary scholars for its first-hand accounts of the horrors of the middle passage and the cruelty endured by slaves during their sojourn in Cartagena. Part 2 evidences that Sandoval did not advocate the abolition of slavery or the slave trade, but argued for the humane treatment of slaves. The text further evidences that he considered the evangelistic prospects to be a legitimisation of the African slave trade, writing: ‘Bread must be rolled out before it is baked, and the slave ships are the paddles

534

alonso de sandoval

for placing this bread in the oven of the Church’ (De instauranda, p. 73). And, concerning Christ, ‘Now he wants you to be Christians, his children, his brothers and sisters. For this reason, he took you from your lands, where you lived among Moors, gentiles, barbarians, and children of the devil. Leaving your parents, relatives, and friends, condemned to miserable labour, he chose you to teach you the true and certain path to blessedness’ (p. 138). Part 3 is the heart of the De instauranda. It proffers concrete suggestions and guidelines as to how effectively to catechise Africans in their own vernacular with the aid of translators and how to prepare them for baptism. Several pages are dedicated to practices in the African ports of departure of baptising slaves before boarding the slave-ships and deliberations as to whether such baptisms can be considered valid. Part 4 argues, on the basis of the Bible and church history, that the evangelisation of Africans in general and African slaves in particular is an urgent and worthy calling for Jesuits. Beers (‘Alonso de Sandoval’, p. 15) calls it an ‘extensive apology for the appropriateness of the ministry to the slave as a worthy missionary vocation’. The closing section serves the double purpose of invoking higher religious authorities that sanctioned the evangelisation of Africans as well as appealing to fellow Jesuits to embrace the ministry to the African enslaved. Islam and Muslims are mentioned in Parts 1, 3, and 4. In Part 1, Sandoval regularly, and in strongly antagonistic terms, refers to the spread of Islam on the Upper Guinea coast, possibly drawing on the material of fellow Jesuits such as Baltasar Barreira and Manuel Álvares. He talks about the ‘numerous Mandingas who energetically interact with all the Guinean kingdoms with the goal of infecting them with the cursed Mohammedan sect [Islam]’, who not only ‘drink the poison of Mohammed’s sect themselves’ but spread Islam while trading, with the result that ‘the devil gets a good bargain for their labour’ (De instauranda, pp. 25, 33). Sandoval uses the terms ‘Mandingas’ and ‘Moors’ interchangeably to refer to Muslims and calls Islam ‘the cursed Mohammedan sect’. Interestingly, Part 1 offers a detailed description of how Muslim scholars go about spreading their message in the towns of Guinea. The richness of detail in the account of how the event is announced, the scene decorated and the preaching conducted suggests that Sandoval may have gathered information from one of his informants who witnessed these performances personally.



alonso de sandoval

535

Again, the tone of the narrative is strongly polemical and the description projects a similar polemical attitude about Muslim scholars, whom Sandoval represents as actively vying with Christianity for the soul of Africans: ‘When they arrive in a new town, they announce the day when they will begin their sermons so that many people from all over the region will know to gather there at that time. They decorate a plaza and hang a few scrolls that seem to give their lies some authority. Then the priests stand and raise their hands and eyes to heaven. After a while, they prostrate themselves before the infernal writings and bow to them. After getting up, they give thanks to Allah and to his great prophet Mohammed, sent to pardon their sins. No one speaks, sleeps, or lets their eyes wonder for two hours as they read and discuss the writings. Orators praise their kings and lords, puffing up their vanity, as the priests speak of their victories and those of their ancestors. They mix many lies into their stories, degrading our holy faith and praising Mohammed’s cursed sect, eloquently persuading the kings and everyone else to reject Christianity’ (p. 33). Part 3 offers only fleeting references to Muslims, mentioning that there are ‘slaves who do not want to be baptised’ but rather ‘refuse to leave their sect and false law’ (p. 110), whilst other slaves ‘make a thousand salaams to show their gratefulness’ (p. 138). Also among the catechism questions formulated by Sandoval, there is a brief but explicit reference to Islam: ‘Do they want to be Christians, obeying the law of Jesus Christ like the whites, living like them, serving and obeying the great God of the Christians, or be Moors [Muslims], gentiles, and barbarians, like they were in their land?’ And Sandoval instructs his fellow priests to teach people ‘until they give the correct answers to these questions’, which is ‘Be like Christians’ (p. 134). Sandoval ends Part 4 and the work as a whole with a passionate appeal to his fellow Jesuits to forge ahead in the evangelisation of Africans, lest Muslim preachers, whose zeal he grudgingly admires, win the race: ‘The Moors preach their cursed sect on the Ethiopian coasts. They brave the scalding sands of Libya and endure such hunger and thirst that they have to kill their camels and suck their blood in order not to die on the road. The Moors endure so many dangers and risks for such a worldly, corrupt reward, but we as Christians, especially those who are religious professionals, and most especially brothers of the Company of Jesus, should run towards the greatest eternal prize. . . . Ignorant men sacrifice themselves for their diabolic superstitions, so we should do everything for the sake of Christ’s faith and the cross on which he died’ (p. 191).

536

alonso de sandoval

Significance Sandoval’s De instauranda Aethiopum salute demonstrates that 16th-century decrees regulating the immigration of Muslims and Moriscos to the Americas proved increasingly untenable when the slave trade began to burgeon. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the Upper Guinea coast where Islam had already spread was one of the main suppliers of slaves to be deported to the Americas. Sandoval’s text evidences that, in the early 17th century, substantial numbers of enslaved African Muslims (Wolof, Serer, Mandinka and Fula) passed through the Cartagena markets. While some of these enslaved Muslims converted to Christianity, others rejected baptism outright, causing Sandoval to lament: ‘We often have difficulty converting them, so we catechise them using only the most articulate translators’ (p. 44). Sandoval’s antagonistic descriptions of the spread of Islam in West Africa and his passionate appeals for the evangelisation of Africans in both Africa and the Americas could possibly be construed as an indication of his fear that the presence of enslaved African Muslims in Cartagena signposted that the New World was to become the next front line between Christianity and Islam. Publications Alonso de Sandoval, Naturaleza, policía sagrada i profana, costumbres i ritos, disciplina i catecismo evangélico de todos etíopes or De instauranda Aethiopum salute, Seville, 1627; http://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/bpt6k73763z (digitalised version available through BNF) Alonso de Sandoval, De instauranda Aethiopum salute, Madrid, 1647 (revised and expanded 1627 edition); R/5583 (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Digitale Hispánica) Alonso de Sandoval, De instauranda Aethiopum salute. El mundo de la esclavitud negra in América, ed. A. Valtierra, Bogotá, 1941, 1956 (1627 edition) Alonso de Sandoval, Un tratado sobre la esclavitud, ed. E. Vila Vilar (1627 edition) Alonso de Sandoval, Treatise on slavery, ed. and trans. N. von Germeten (English trans. of selected passages) Studies G. Harpster, ‘The color of salvation. The materiality of blackness in Alonso de Sandoval’s De instauranda Aethiopum salute’, in P.A. Patton (ed.), Envisioning others. Race, color, and the visual in Iberia and Latin America, Leiden, 2016, 83-111



alonso de sandoval

537

Von Germeten, ‘Introduction’ J.B.A. de Souza, ‘Las Casas, Alonso de Sandoval and defence of black slavery’, Topoi. Revista de História 7/12 (2006) 25-59 R. Morgan, ‘Postscript to his brothers. Reading Alonso de Sandoval’s De instauranda Aethiopum salute as a Jesuit spiritual text’, Atlantic Studies 5 (2008) 75-98 E. Restrepo, ‘De instauranda Aethiopum salute. Sobre las ediciones y características de la obra de Alonso de Sandoval’, Tabula Rasa 3 (2005) 13-26 M. Olsen, Slavery and salvation in colonial Cartagena de Indias, Gainesville FL, 2004 Beers, ‘Alonso de Sandoval’ M. Rivas, La presencia africana en el discurso colonial. Alonso de Sandoval y De instauranda Aethiopum salute, Seville, 1992 L.-A. Maya-Greze, ‘De instauranda Aethiopum salute. Un apport documentaire à l’histoire africaine et afro-americaine’, Paris, 1989 (PhD Diss. Université de Paris I) G. de Grande, Lèxico sociológica Afrorománico en De instauranda Aethiopum salute del p. Alonso de Sandoval, Bogotá, 1970 Martha Frederiks

Täklä Śəllase Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown Date of Death 9 March 1638 Place of Death Fogära, Ethiopia

Biography

Täklä Śəllase was an Ethiopian priest and the royal chronicler during the reign of the Emperor Susənyos (1606-32). Of Oromo origin, he grew up among the monks of the Däbrä Libanos monastery. He was nicknamed ‘Ṭino’, a name that in the Oromo language refers to a person of short stature. Towards the end of the rule of the Emperor Śarṣ́a Dəngəl, Täklä Śəllase led a group of priests who sang the qəne, a type of hymn expressing adoration, praise or thanksgiving, improvised by the däbtära (lay ecclesiastics) during the celebration of the Divine Office. Under the influence of Jesuit missionaries, the Emperor Susənyos introduced the Catholic faith as the state religion. By 1612, Täklä Śəllase had become his secretary, and was gradually recognised as his adviser and great friend. He developed a strong friendship with the Jesuits and turned into one of the most loyal followers of Catholic doctrine and friend to various prominent Catholics of the court. He was also considered a zealous Catholic in his efforts to spread the Catholic faith; skilful in his capacity to argue and convince the defenders of Ethiopian Christianity, he ‘was by them very feared and considered a cruel scourge’. In his role as royal historian, Täklä Śəllase accompanied the emperor on his journeys and lived in the kätäma (royal camp) during the rainy season. He himself tells how he never separated from the emperor except in difficult situations. Susənyos was succeeded by his son Fasilädäs (1632-67), who immediately restored traditional Ethiopian Orthodox beliefs. Many Catholics were persecuted and, when he went into hiding, Täklä Śəllase’s possessions were confiscated. For six years, Täklä Śəllase wandered in desert areas hiding from his persecutors and clinging onto the Catholic faith. When he was apprehended, he was so weak that he had to be carried to the emperor’s camp, where he was subjected to torture to make him renounce his beliefs, though he did not relent. Eventually, Fasilädäs



täklä śƎllase

539

offered that he debate publicly with the monks of the court in a fashion that had been introduced by the Jesuits. But Fasilädäs was not Susənyos, and Täklä Śəllase knew that conditions would play against him, so he refused to participate in spite of asserting that ‘there is no book in Ethiopia which I have not read many times’. He resolved that it was not the moment to debate, but to die for the Catholic faith. In the end he was sentenced to death by stoning in the emperor’s camp. The Jesuits remembered him as an exemplary Catholic and his story was told in diverse sources and letters.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary B. Tellez, Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta, Coimbra, 1660, pp. 370-2, 610-13 F.M. Esteves Pereira (ed. and trans.), Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia, Lisbon, 1891-1900 C. Beccari, Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, Rome, 1903-17: vol. 3, pp. 373, 384, 386, 432; vol. 6, pp. 229, 277, 299-300, 303, 305, 309, 333-4, 353, 396, 472; vol. 7, pp. 3, 139, 209, 317, 394-5; vol. 8, pp. 74, 99, 113, 137-8, 260, 337; vol. 9, pp. 15, 36, 263-71, 416-17; vol. 11, pp. 451, 474-5; vol. 12, pp. 273, 514; vol. 13, pp. 69, 102, 115, 164, 175-6, 400 Secondary L. Cohen, art. ‘Susənyos’, in S. Uhlig and A. Bausi (eds), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2010, vol. 4, pp. 770-2 D. Toubkis, art. ‘Täklä Śəllase’, in S. Uhlig and A. Bausi (eds), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2010, vol. 4, pp. 843-4 D. Toubkis, ‘Je deviendrai roi sur tout le pays d’Ethiopie’. Royauté et écriture de l’histoire dans l’Ethiopie chrétienne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles), Paris, 2004, pp. 107-34

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia, ‘Chronicles of Susənyos, King of Ethiopia’ Date 1629 Original Language Gəʿəz (classical Ethiopic) Description Even though the usefulness of royal chronicles is limited by the fact that they are ‘official’ traditions and are representative of a particular

540

täklä śƎllase

stratum of the Amharic-Təgreñña society in Ethiopia, they have nevertheless played an important role in the reconstruction of Ethiopia’s past, being the vehicle through which local perceptions of historical developments are expressed. Says John McCann: ‘Even if their product does not always suit the modern historian’s needs, chroniclers were, after all, historians who approached their work with a great deal of dedication.’ Three different authors participated in writing the Emperor Susənyos’s chronicle, of whom only two can be identified by name. Məhərka Dəngəl began the chronicle, writing up to ch. 23, Täklä Śəllase wrote chs 24-79, and the last author is anonymous. Täklä Śəllase wrote in relatively pure Gəʿəz (classical Ethiopic), in a simple, clear and, at times, elegant style, though he employed Amharic for some civilian and military positions and items for which there were no equivalents in the Gəʿəz tongue. Allusions to Muslims are sporadic and far from systematic in the chapters he wrote. It is known that some Turks armed with muskets were active in the service of emperors Susənyos and Yaʿəqob. Täklä Śəllase tells how even the abunä, the senior hierarch of the Ethiopian church, who was of Egyptian origin, was killed in a confrontation between the two rivals for the throne when he was mistaken for a Turk. In what must be regarded as a revealing and important aspect of the Chronicle, Täklä Śəllase tells how Susənyos did not hesitate to interfere in the internal affairs of neighbouring Muslim states, and how Muslim rulers he conquered acknowledged his authority in accordance with the traditional rules of diplomacy. Thus, the king of ʿAdal (the name by which Ethiopian chronicles referred to the state of Harär) sent him rich and fine clothes ‘that were necessary for the service of war’, while Adlan I of Sinnār (r. 1606-11/12) sent him beautiful horses as a sign of submission. Significance Täklä Śəllase’s work provides valuable information about the relationships between Christians and Muslims in the Horn of Africa in the early years of the 17th century. The Chronicle describes commercial relations between the different kingdoms, and is also a testimony to the rules of diplomacy that were established between the Christian Empire of Ethiopia and the neighbouring Muslim states, which recognised the supremacy of the emperor. Relations took various forms: some Muslim kings allied with Susənyos and became tributaries of the Christian state, while others resented him because of his interference in the internal affairs of their kingdoms. It is remarkable, however, that the Muslim groups are



täklä śƎllase

541

almost never referred to as such, and that it is their ethnic identity as Turks, Funğ and so on that is mainly emphasised. Täklä Śəllase’s work constitutes one of the fundamental sources for the history of the tributary Muslim kingdoms of the Emperor of Ethiopia. It also shows the way in which the Christian kingdom and its Muslim kingdoms sometimes cooperated cautiously together to resist the ambitions of the Ottoman Turks. Publications MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – Codices Aethiopici, Codex xxx, fols 1-75 (1848) F.M. Esteves Pereira (ed.), Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia, Lisbon, 1892 (Portuguese trans.) J. Perruchon (ed. and trans.), ‘Notes pour l’histoire d’Éthiopie: règne de Susenyos ou Seltan-Sagad (1607-1632)’, Revue Sémitique 5 (1897) 75-80, 173-89 (French trans.) F.M. Esteves Pereira (trans.), Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia, Lisbon, 1900 (Portuguese trans.) Getatchew Haile (ed. and trans.), ‘A Christ for the Gentiles. The case of zä-Kréstos of Ethiopia’, Journal of Religion in Africa 15 (1985) 86-95 (passage in Gəʿəz with English trans.) Studies H. Pennec, Des Jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, Paris, 2003, pp. 287-97 I. Orlowska, ‘The Chronicle of Susneyos as an Ethiopian source for research on the Jesuit period in Ethiopia’, in Baye Yimam (ed.), Ethiopian studies at the end of the second millennium, Addis Ababa, 2002, vol. 1, pp. 422-34 J. McCann, ‘The Ethiopian Chronicles. An African documentary tradition’, Northeast African Studies 1 (1979) 47-61 O.G.S. Crawford, The Fung kingdom of Sennar, Gloucester, 1951, pp. 180-7 Leonardo Cohen

Luis Mariano Date of Birth About 1580 Place of Birth Bréscia, Italy Date of Death After 1630 Place of Death Madagascar

Biography

Luis Mariano was born in Bréscia, Italy, in approximately 1580. Nothing is known of his childhood or education before 1600, when he entered the Society of Jesus. From 1610, he actively participated in their missionary work in eastern Africa. Mariano accompanied Captain Rodrigues da Costa on board the Nossa Senhora da Esperança, setting out from Goa in 1614 en route to Madagascar. During 1614-16, they undertook a visit to the island of Madagascar, with the original purpose of searching for survivors of shipwrecked Portuguese trade vessels. There were also attempts to establish friendships with local inhabitants for the purpose of reaching trade agreements, and endeavours to convert the local inhabitants (Bechtloff, Madagaskar, p. 14). Mariano’s letters, written during and after the voyage, provide the first descriptions of the people of Madagascar and their religion, values and history. Particularly important are the letters held in MS Evora, ‘Relação da Ilha de S. Lourenço’, and ‘Breve Relação da segunda jornada, e descobrimento’. On the basis of Mariano’s positive reports, the Society of Jesus in Goa decided to send six missionaries to Madagascar in 1616, but this endeavour proved unsuccessful. Following Mariano’s first visit to Madagascar in 1614, missionary work began in 1617 but was stopped that same year. Mariano went back to Mozambique, but soon begged his provincial to let him return to Madagascar. After analysing the reasons for the failure of the first missionary expedition, the Society finally allowed him to return, and Mariano left for Madagascar in the first half of the 1620s. He wrote a series of letters which became the only source of information concerning experiences with the local inhabitants in Mozambique and Madagascar. His last letter is dated 9 September 1630 and his later life and cause of death remain



luis mariano

543

unknown. He went missing in Madagascar in the early 1630s. There is no known information concerning the lives of the Society’s other missionaries in Madagascar.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Evora, Biblioteca Publica Eborense – cod. Cxvi/1-21, fols 1-195 (account of Madagascar) MS Evora, Biblioteca Publica Eborense – cod. Cxvi/1-21, fols 196-227 (short account of the second visit) A. and G. Grandidier (eds), Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar (1613-40), Paris, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 105-333, 431-2; https://archive.org/ stream/collectiondesouv02gran#page/430/mode/2up Secondary D. Bechtloff, Madagaskar und die Missionare. Technisch-zivilisatorische Transfers in der Früh- und Endphase europäischer Expansionsbestrebungen, Stuttgart, 2002 A. Santos, art. ‘Mariana (Mariano), Luis. Misionero, cartógrafo’, in C. O’Neill and J.M. Dominguez (eds), Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús. Biográfico-temático, Madrid, 2001, vol. 3, col. 2507b L.A.A. da Costa, O processo expansionista portugûes da crise nacional trecentista ao império messiânico manuelino, Coimbra, 1996 D. Ralibera, Madagascar et le christianisme, Paris, 1993 F. Esoavelomandroso, ‘Madagascar and the neighbouring islands from the 12th to the 16th century’, in UNESCO general history of Africa, Berkeley CA, 1984, vol. 4, pp. 597-613 A.-G. Rantoandro, ‘L’extrême sud-est de Madagascar aux XVI et XVIIèmes siècles à travers les chroniques européenes de l’époque’, Omaly sy Anio 13-14 (1981) 211-34 H. Leitão, Os dois descobrimentos da Ilha de São Lorenço mandados fazer pelo vice-rei D. Jerónimo de Azevedo nos anos de 1613 a 1616, Lisbon, 1970 R. Kent, ‘Madagascar and Africa. II. The Sakalava, Maroserana, Dady and Tromba before 1700’, Journal of African History 9 (1968) 387-408 A. da Silva, Mentalidade missiológica dos Jesuitas em Moçambique antes de 1759, Lisbon, 1967, vol. 1, p. 44 E. Axelson, Portuguese in south-east Africa 1600-1700, Johannesburg, 1964 A. Kammerer, La découverte de Madagascar par les Portugais et la cartographie de l’île, Lisbon, 1950

544

luis mariano

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Luis Mariano’s letters and reports, 1616-30 Date 1616-30 Original Language Portuguese Description The current whereabouts of Mariano’s original letters and reports are unknown. Alfred and Guillaume Grandidier mention in a footnote in their Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar (vol. 2, p. 2) that they had been in the possession of Fernando de Sousa Coutinho (1850-97), fourth Count of Linhares, who in 1895 sold them to the collector Ayres de Campos, Count of l’Ameal, who allowed them to be transcribed by Dr Teixeira de Carvalho. They were then translated into French, as Madagascar in the 19th century came into the French sphere of interest, becoming a territory in 1896. After Ayres de Campos’ death in 1921, his collection of manuscripts was sold, and at present, only the French translations are known. Mariano’s ten letters and reports, together with those of his fellow Jesuits, Manoel de Almeida and António de Azevedo, are collected together in Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar, vol. 2. Here, Mariano not only makes references to the presence of Islam, but also reports on the Jesuits’ interactions with Muslim rulers. His records consist largely of descriptions of the work carried out by the mission, and of the religion, history and values of the indigenous Malagasy people. He is aware of the presence of Muslims on the island, particularly on the eastern coast. Mariano mentions the origins of one of the Zamfirana rulers, bruto Chambanga (Tsiambany), who traced his ancestry 17 generations back to Mangalore and Mecca (Leitão, Os dois descobrimentos, p. 240), his ancestors having brought Islam with them from Sumatra (Randrianja and Ellis, Madagascar, p. 62). The letters and reports by Mariano revealingly refer to Muslims as the enemies of Christians because they oppose the spread of the gospel. In a letter dated 18 June 1616, Mariano reports that the king had many Muslim vassals, causing him to follow the advice of his religious advisors. Mariano here refers to Islam as the religion of the faqirs, and he also emphasises the opposition Christian missionaries could expect to encounter from Muslims (Grandidier, Collection des ouvrages anciens vol. 2, p. 158).



luis mariano

545

Significance Mariano and his fellow Jesuits’ survey of and mission to Madagascar represent some of the first contacts between Muslims and Christians on the island. The Jesuits are clearly aware of the presence of Muslims and their influence among some rulers, as well as their perceived opposition to Christians. At the time, Madagascar was comparatively unimportant in Portuguese foreign policy, and the Christian mission to Madagascar subsequently suffered, being considered of secondary importance. For this reason, the few documents, or rather the published letters, reports and instructions of the Jesuits, as well as residence permits granted to them in 1619, in translation, are nowadays of utmost importance to the further study and understanding of Muslim-Christian relations in Madagascar. Publications MS Coimbra, collection of Ayres de Campos, sold in 1921 (current whereabouts unknown) Grandidier and Grandidier, Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar, vol. 2, pp. 105-333, 431-2 (French trans. of lost Portuguese originals, includes all known correspondence from the Jesuit mission); https://archive.org/stream/collectiondesouv02 gran#page/430/mode/2up Letters of Luis Mariano SJ 18 June 1616, concerning the events in Anosy, pp. 140-58 July 1616, about his work on the western coast, pp. 208-16 21 October 1616, concerning the events in Sahadia in the Ménabé, pp. 216-24 22 October 1616, concerning the events in Sahadia in the Ménabé, pp. 224-32 24 May 1617, about Menabé, pp. 232-4 9 September 1630, to the provincial António de Andrade residing in Mozambique, pp. 431-2 Reports by Luis Mariano SJ 20 August 1617, to Jacomo de Medeiros SJ, provincial in Goa, pp. 251-62 October 1617, written in Mozambique, informing the Company’s provincial in Goa about possible Portuguese descendants in the Anosy, pp. 175-9 24 August 1619, written in Mozambique, informing Jacomo de Madeiros, the Company’s provincial in Goa, about constructing a missionary station in the bay of Boina in the island’s west and north-west

546

luis mariano

Other correspondence: 25 May 1616, report on the second mission to south-east Madagascar by Manoel de Almeida SJ, pp. 105-40 (includes orders of the vicar general in Goa to de Almeida, head of the mission, pp. 107-9) 1616, report by João Cardoso de Pina on the journey to Madagascar (31 May-17 September 1616), pp. 206-8 23 May 1617, letter of António de Azevedo SJ, concerning the mission in Sahadia in the Ménabé, pp. 241-8 23 May 1617, second letter of P. António de Azevedo SJ about the mission’s work in Sahadia in the Ménabé, pp. 248-51 1 October 1617, letter by Manoel de Almeida SJ written in Mozambique (Chorao) to the Society’s provincial in Goa concerning missionary work in south-east Madagascar, pp. 158-76 presumably October 1617, letter of da Costa SJ (custodios of the Society) giving reasons for the mission’s failure, pp. 167-74 1617 (undated), report of Manoel de Almeida SJ about the mission in south-east Madagascar during the years 1616-17, pp. 179-206 April 1619, orders to Luis Mariano SJ, head of the mission in northwest Madagascar from Diogo Roiz SJ, pp. 322-33 November 1619, residence permit given to the Jesuits by King Tsinamo for the region of Boina, pp. 325-6 14 November 1619, residence permit given to the Jesuits by King Samamo for the region of Mazlagem, pp. 325-6 June 1620, orders from the inspector of the Madagascar mission, Mendes SJ, footnote pp. 322-5 Studies Little has been written on Christian-Muslim relations in Madagascar during this period. The following works make some reference to Mariano’s letters and attitudes: S. Randrianja and S. Ellis, Madagascar, a short history, London, 2009, pp. 61-3, 77-8, 85-6, 91-5 Bechtloff, Madagaskar und die Missionare P. Ottino, L’étrangère intime. Essai d’anthropologie de la civilisation de l’ancien Madagascar, Paris, 1986 Leitão, Os dois descobrimentos da Ilha de São Lorenço Dagmar Bechtloff

Manoel Barradas Date of Birth 1572 Place of Birth Monforte, Alentejo Date of Death 31 July 1646 Place of Death Cochin

Biography

Manoel Barradas was a Jesuit missionary and author. He entered the Society of Jesus as a novice in 1587 and set sail for Goa, India, four years later. He served in India in various educational and administrative positions, as well as pursuing his studies (Beccari, ‘In vitam’, p. v et passim). In 1601, he was ordained priest, and in 1612 he made the fourth solemn vow of admission into the Jesuit Order, after which he was appointed associate provincial of the Malabar province. In 1621, he was chosen to reinforce the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia, though some Jesuits, including Manoel de Almeida, who was to travel with him, disagreed with this because of his age (Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum, vol. 12, p. 21). In 1623, after a failed attempt the previous year, Barradas left Goa together with Manoel de Almeida, Luis Cardeira and Francisco Carvalho. They landed at Massawa (today Eritrea) on 21 December and reached Fremona, the northernmost mission station in Ethiopia, in early February 1624. Barradas remained for four years at the residence in Fremona, during which time he led preaching missions in the surrounding countryside. In 1629, he went to the southern region of Damot to administer the recently-built residence of Lije Nigus. In the years after the Emperor Susənyos (r. 1606-32) had officially embraced Catholicism the Ethiopian mission expanded, but it met reversal under Susənyos’s son and successor, Fasilädäs (r. 1632-67). In 1633, Barradas and other Jesuits were expelled and forced to return to India. During thir return, they were captured by the Ottomans and spent 16 months in captivity in Aden, until they were ransomed in late 1634 by Indian merchants. Back in India, Barradas occupied influential positions in the Jesuit province. He was rector of the Jesuit college in Goa, official of the Inquisition and provincial of the Jesuit provinces of Goa (1640-3) and Malabar (1643-6).

548

manoel barradas

Barradas wrote a few works, none of them published during his lifetime: his treatise on Ethiopia, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, and in addition Tratado dos deuses gentilicios de todo o Oriente, e dos ritos e ceremonias que uzão os Malabares and Apologia contra Fr. Luiz de Urreta da Ordem dos Pregadores sobre o que escrevera do Imperio da Etiopia. Before his death, Barradas sent his Tractatus to his friend, the historian Manoel Severim de Faria, Canon of Evora. It was later deposited in the Jesuit archives in Rome, where it remained unread until the 20th century.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary D.B. Machado, art. ‘Manoel Barradas’, in Bibliotheca lusitana, vol. 3, Lisbon, 1752, 192-3 Manoel Barradas, ‘Tractatus tres historico geographici’, in C. Beccari (ed.), Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales, vol. 4, Rome, 1906 Manoel Barradas, Il Tigrè. Descritto da un missionario gesuita del secolo XVII, ed. C. Beccari, Rome, 1912 Manoel Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici (1634). A seventeenth century historical and geographical account of Tigray, Ethiopia, trans. E. Fileul, ed. R. Pankhurst, Wiesbaden, 1996 Secondary I. Boavida, art. ‘Manoel Barradas’, in S. Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia aethiopica, Wiesbaden, vol. 1, 2004, 483-4 A. Casimiro, art. ‘Barradas, Manuel’, in Enciclopedia luso-brasileira de cultura, vol. 3, Lisbon, 1965, 655 C. Beccari, ‘Introduzione’, in Manoel Barradas, Il Tigrè. Descritto da un missionario gesuita del secolo XVII, ed. C. Beccari, Rome, 1912, v-xiv C. Beccari, ‘In vitam et opera p. Emmanuelis Barradas Critica introductio’, in Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentalis, vol. 4, iii-xxxii C. Sommervogel, ‘Barradas, Emmanuel’, in C. Sommervogel et al. (eds), Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (rev. edition), Louvain, 1960, vol. 1, 911

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Tractatus tres historico-geographici, ‘Three historical-geographical treatises’ Date Before 1636 Original Language Portuguese



manoel barradas

549

Description The Tractatus was written by Barradas over a period of about two years during his return from Ethiopia to India, following the expulsion of the Jesuits (Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales, vol. 4, p. xxi). The book is divided into three parts. Part I, Tratado primeiro do estado da santa fé romana em Ethiopia quando se lançou o pregäo contra ella, describes Christian Ethiopia at the time of the Catholic mission and the achievements of the Jesuits there. Part II, Tratado segundo do reino de Tygre e seus mandos em Ethiopia, is an extensive and detailed description of Tigray province and what is now Eritrea. Here Barradas gives ample details of political, social, geographical and ethnographical features, as well as of fauna and flora. In chs 6 and 7 he describes the coastal regions of what is today Eritrea (Massawa, Baylūl, Danakil, Hergigo), mentioning Ottoman control of it and the relationship between the Muslimdominated coastal areas and the Christian-dominated highlands. He is particularly interested in informing the European public about the military strength and weak points of the Ottoman positions on the Red Sea (chs 10-11). Part III, Tratado terceiro da cidade e fortaleza de Adem, is a detailed report of the port of Aden, which had been coveted by the Portuguese since the time of the Viceroy Afonso Albuquerque (1453-1515). Barradas’ purpose is to provide first-hand intelligence about the port and fortress in order to prepare the way towards capturing it. Chapter 5 bears the telling title ‘On the easy way by which this city could be occupied’. Chapter 8, ‘The conquest of this city is wished and requested’, is a plea to the Portuguese rulers in India to take the city. Barradas concludes with a ‘geopolitical’ assessment of the importance of taking Aden, which in his view would give the Portuguese control over a large part of the Arabian Peninsula. Significance The Tractatus provides a wealth of information about the geopolitical situation of the Red Sea in the first half of the 17th century. It also emphatically underlines the close links between the Jesuits working from Goa and Portuguese political interests in the regions in which they were active. Here, Portuguese rule and Catholic Christianity seemed almost synonymous, the one spreading with the other. In 1636, Barradas sent the original manuscript of the Tractatus to his friend Manoel de Faria e Sousa in Portugal. Sousa used it in his monumental Asia Portuguesa (vol. 1, Lisbon: Henrique Valente, 1666, Advertencias). At some point, it was sent to Rome where it was to remain

550

manoel barradas

dormant in the Jesuit archives until, at the end of the 19th century, it was discovered by Camillo Beccari, who had been appointed to study Jesuit activities in Ethiopia. Beccari published the work in 1906, and six years later he also published an abridged version, which contains mostly the second part. Publications Manoel Barradas, ‘Tractatus tres historico geographici’, in C. Beccari (ed.), Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales, Rome, 1906, vol. 4 Manoel Barradas, Il Tigrè. Descritto da un missionario gesuita del secolo XVII, ed. C. Beccari, Rome, 1912 Manoel Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici (1634). A seventeenth century historical and geographical account of Tigray, Ethiopia, trans. E. Fileul, ed. R. Pankhurst, Wiesbaden, 1996 (English trans.) Andreu Martínez

The Mombasa Martyrs Processus martyrum de Mombassa, ‘Inquiry into the martyrs of Mombasa’ Date 1627-36 Original Language Latin and Italian Description In August 1631, the king of Mombasa led an uprising against the Portuguese, resulting in the death of the governor and several hundred Christians, who were considered martyrs. An enquiry (processus) into the events leading up to these martyrdoms and to begin the process towards their canonisation was conducted in Goa from August 1632 to January 1633. The records documenting this enquiry were sent to Lisbon in 1635, arriving in Rome in 1636. They were then translated from Portuguese into Latin, and an Italian summary was appended. The record of the Processus consists of 55 folios (fols 139-93) bound in Curia Generalizia, Archivio Postulazione, Cartella Postularia OSA 10 (Martyres Japonica et Mombasae), held in the archives of the Postulature of the Augustinian Generalate in Rome. Folios 141-7 provide the questions that the witnesses were to be asked, together with a list of all those killed; folios 147-73 consist of 21 witness statements from Augustinians, African men and women, and Portuguese; folios 173-81 contain a detailed account of the events in Mombasa by Fr João of Jesus, who visited in August 1632; folios 185-7 present the findings of the panel; folios 187-8 contain the imprimatur added in Lisbon; and folios 189-90, added in Rome, give a circumstantial account of the death of three Augustinians in Mombasa. In addition, there is an anonymous account of the rebellion, which is considered to be a summary translated into Italian to help the Vatican officials understand the events that had occurred (Welch, Some unpublished manuscripts, pp. 11-15). The king of Malindi and Mombasa, born Yusuf, was the son of Sultan al-Hassan ibn Ahmed, who was killed by the Portuguese in 1614. Yusuf ’s uncle Muhammad was appointed regent and Yusuf was sent to Goa, baptised and renamed Jerónimo Chingulia (also Hierónimo). Educated by the Augustinians, he converted to Christianity and then served with the Portuguese fleets for seven years. He married Isabel Varella, who is described as Portuguese, and they were crowned king and queen in

552

the mombasa martyrs

Goa and returned to Mombasa in 1626 (Freeman-Grenville, Mombasa rising, pp. xxv-vii). Jerónimo Chingulia wrote a letter to the pope in August 1627, a copy of which is held in Madrid (MS 2359, fol. 17 r-v). In this letter, he states that he came from a Muslim family but had since become a Christian and was obliged to obey the king of Portugal. ‘I who was born of Moorish parents and today by God’s grace and through the Order of St Augustine have come to the knowledge of the faith, have a twofold obligation to submit myself and to offer myself to the service of your holiness. I was born in Mombasa to my father, Sultan Muhammad, King of Malindi and Mombasa.’ He also mentions that he is obeyed by his ‘Moorish vassals, who show him every courtesy and submission’, and describes his zeal in making converts to Christianity: ‘In two years [I] have converted more than one hundred to the faith of Christ’ (FreemanGrenville, Mombasa rising, pp. 128-31). Following disagreements with the Portuguese captain, Leitão de Gamboa, possibly because of suspected adultery between the captain and Isabel Varella (see letter in Freeman-Grenville, Mombasa rising, pp. 145), on 15 August 1631, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jerónimo Chingulia led a group in an attack on Fort Jesus, killing de Gamboa and others in the fort. The sporadic killing of Christians who refused to renounce their faith followed, in total resulting in the death of 228 men, women and children. In the Processus, the questions the witnesses were to be asked (FreemanGrenville, Mombasa rising, pp. 8-17) relate directly to the events, referring to some of those involved, with mention of Jerónimo Chingulia encouraging Christians to convert and become cassiguez / caxis, a Portuguese word adapted from the Arabic qissīs, i.e. a ‘priest of the Moorish sect’ (pp. 11, 13; in Portuguese works, qissīs, which in classical Arabic habitually refers to Christian priests, is used for Muslim religious leaders). These witness testimonies were needed to justify the beatification of those who died in Mombasa, and were recorded from what the witnesses reported to have personally seen and heard, and their ­interpretations. These testimonies have several commonalities in both contents and interpretations of events. In their language, they share a similar tone, reflecting a basic anti-Muslim attitude or an antipathy towards what is referred to as the ‘Moorish sect’. While they vary in length, they share the common theme that the martyrs died for their faith, having courageously refused to convert to this ‘Moorish sect’, and that Jerónimo Chingulia was a heretic and apostate from Christianity. A further aspect is the description of how he treated the church in the fort and its contents, graphically demonstrating his antipathy towards his former faith:

the mombasa martyrs

Illustration 13. Map of Mombasa at the time of the rising showing Fort Jesus and the town, from Pedro Barretto de Resende, Livro do Estado de India Oriental, 1635

553

554

the mombasa martyrs . . . he ordered everything that was in the church and the convent to be brought to him, and the buildings to be levelled, . . . He ordered a wall to be built in the middle of the main church and at the side of the principal door a small room in the manner of the Moors with three steps and there he made a mosque. Where the baptismal font was he made a cell, and opened up a hole in the earth into which he placed the said font so that the Moors could wash their feet in it before they entered the mosque as is custom amongst the Moors. At the side of the High Altar and the other altars he opened up a window and a door, and there he had horses stabled for some time; and black men slept there, men whom he had made to marry according to the Moorish rite (Freeman-Grenville, Mombasa rising, pp. 94-7).

Significance The account of the Mombasa martyrs is well-known within the history of the church in East Africa, but only in general terms. The text of the Processus, with its detailed examination of the events in Mombasa, offers insight into the ways in which the Portuguese used religion to control territories under their rule. The witness testimonies show that the relationship between the two faiths was not entirely about religion, and that an attempt at a superficial solution to the grievances that caused the uprising would not have had any effect. Actions described in the Processus reveal the ways in which the Portuguese manipulated Muslim proxy rulers in East Africa; Yusuf’s conversion to Christianity was their method of enforcing control. His subsequent rejection of the faith, and his reaction in deliberately desecrating the church, show how easily deep-seated anger and fear of the other surfaced when an opportune moment arrived. It also shows that, in Yusuf’s mind, and almost certainly his followers’ minds too, there was no distinction between the Portuguese as occupiers of their land and Christianity as the faith they had brought. To kill the one and destroy the symbols of the other amounted to the same act of repudiation. Publications MS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional – MS 2359, fol. 17 r-v (20 August 1627; letter from the king of Malindi and Mombasa to the pope) MS Rome, Archive of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide – Lett. ant. vol. 103, fol. 71 (16 April 1633; letter from Mgr Lorenzo Tramaldo concerning the rebellion of the king)



the mombasa martyrs

555

MS Rome, Archives of the Postulature of the Augustinian Generalate – Curia Generalizia, Archivio Postulazione, Cartella Postulare OSA 10 (Martyres Japonica et Mombasae), fols 139-93 (1636; report of the Processus) MS Rome, Casanatense Library – MS XVI, 39 Cod. 2681, 120-8 (possibly 1636; anonymous Italian report of the rebellion) S.R. Welch, Some unpublished manuscripts relating to the history of south and east Africa, Pretoria, 1930, pp. 11-15 (repr. in G.S.P. FreemanGrenville (ed.), East African coast. Select documents, London, 19752, pp. 168-74) (English trans. of the Italian report on the rebellion) G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville (ed. and trans.), The Mombasa rising against the Portuguese 1631. From sworn evidence, London, 1980 (Latin and Portuguese texts with English trans.), Processus, pp. 1-127; letter of the king, Appendix 1, pp. 128-31; letter of Mgr Lorenzo Tramaldo, Appendix 5, pp. 142-5 Studies A. Shorter, art. ‘Mombasa martyrs’, in J.J. Bonk (ed.), Dictionary of African Christian biography, New Haven CT, 2003; http://www.dacb. org/stories/kenya/mombasa_martyrs.html I.A. Salim, ‘East Africa, the coast’, in B.A. Ogot (ed.), General history of Africa. Africa from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, Oxford, 1999, 750-76, pp. 765-6 E. Corcoran, Mombasa mission. The growth of the Church in Mombasa, Kenya 1888-1990, Dublin, 1997, pp. 1-10; https://archive.org/stream/ mombasamission1800edwa/mombasamission1800edwa_djvu.txt M. Cullen, The martyrs of Mombasa, Nairobi, 1997 Tome Nhamitambo Mbuia-Joao, ‘Mombasa martyrs’, Washington DC, 1990, (PhD Diss. Catholic University of America) Freeman-Grenville, Mombasa rising, pp. xxi-lvii J. Strandes, The Portuguese period in east Africa, ed. J.S. Kirkman, Nairobi, 1968, pp. 128-55, 165-7 J.E.G. Sutton, The east African coast. An historical and archeological review, Nairobi, 1966 E. Axelson, The Portuguese in south-east Africa 1600-1700, Johannesburg, 1960, pp. 78-96 (account of the events of the Mombasa rising using primary sources) W.D. Hussey, Discovery, expansion and empire, London, 1954 Esther Mombo

Alexis de Saint-Lô Date of Birth Late 16th century Place of Birth Normandy, France Date of Death Probably 1638 Place of Death Unknown, possibly Rouen

Biography

Alexis de Saint-Lô was a Capuchin monk and missionary from Normandy. Born of Calvinist parents, he embraced Roman Catholicism and shortly afterwards entered the Capuchin order, living in a monastery in Rouen, where he distinguished himself as a gifted preacher and missionary. He is said to have made several missionary journeys to America and Africa but no details about these journeys are known, except for an expedition he and his fellow Capuchin friar Bernardin de Renouard made to the Petite Côte of Senegal (Michaud, Biographie universelle, p. 12; Walckenaear, Collection des relations, p. 309). De Saint-Lô’s account of the French Capuchin journey to Guinea was first published in 1637 in Paris, under the title Relation du voyage du CapVert. The exact date of this journey is uncertain, being either 1634-5 or 1635-6. This confusion is caused by the fact that in his text de Saint-Lô mentions October 1635 as the date of departure from Dieppe and May 1635 as the date of return. The trip lasted about eight months and aimed to explore the missionary opportunities on the Petite Côte, and to prepare a French Capuchin mission to Guinea, under the auspices of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. The two Capuchins arrived in the port of Rufisque (near present-day Dakar) on 3 November 1634/5. Their report, which relates their encounters and observations in Senegal, contains several lists of Africans (mainly children) baptised by them on the Petite Côte, as well as the names of their godparents. The priests also visited ports south-west of Rufisque such as Cape Gaspar, Portudal or Ale, Seraine and Joal. The Portuguese authorities did not approve of the arrival of foreign missionaries sent by the Propaganda Fide under the protection of Louis XIII of France, as this violated the jurisdiction of the Portuguese padroado (patronage). According to the rules applicable to all religions, journeys to the African continent were to be made from the city



alexis de saint-lô

557

of Lisbon. De Saint-Lô and the other French missionaries started their return voyage to France in May 1635/6. According to Joseph Kenny (Catholic Church, based on António Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd edition, 1935, and on Clemente da Terzorio, Le missioni dei Minori Cappuccini, sunto storico, vol. 10, Africa 1637-1938, Rome, 1938), de Saint-Lô and the French Capuchins undertook a second journey to Joal, Senegal, in 1636; the mission consisted of four priests, including de Saint-Lô himself and de Renouard. But it was shortlived; one of the Capuchins died soon after arriving and the other three returned home sick (Kenny, Catholic Church, p. 64). It is uncertain when and where Alexis de Saint-Lô died. A man with this name who died in 1638 is buried at the Capuchin monastery at Rouen in France; it is likely, but not entirely certain, that this is the same Alexis de Saint-Lô who travelled to Africa as a missionary (Walckenaear, Collection des relations, p. 309).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Alexis de Saint-Lô, Relation du voyage du Cap-Vert, Paris, 1637 A. Brásio (ed.), Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd series, Lisbon, 1979, vol. 5, pp. 268-71 Secondary C. Recheado, ‘As missões Franciscanas na Guiné (Século XVII)’, Lisbon, 2010 (MA Diss. Universidade Nova de Lisboa) M. Gonçalves, ‘A missionação dos Jesuítas e dos Franciscanos nos “Rios da Guiné” no Século XVII’, Lisbon, 1991 (MA Diss. University of Lisbon) J. Kenny, The Catholic Church in tropical Africa, 1445-1850, Ibadan, 1982; http:// www.dhspriory.org/kenny/ccta/DefaultCCTA.htm Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, ouvrage rédigé par une société de gens des lettres et des savants, Paris, 1843 (new edition), vol. 37, p. 355 C.A. Walckenaer, Histoire générale des voyages ou nouvelle collection des relations de voyages par mer et par terre, Paris, 1826, vol. 2, pp. 306-28, esp. 327-8

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Relation du voyage du Cap-Vert, ‘Account of the journey to Cape Verde’ Date 1637 Original Language French

558

alexis de saint-lô

Description Alexis de Saint-Lô’s work belongs to the genres of both travel literature and missionary writing. The only two known documents produced by the Capuchins from this period in West Africa are the Relation du voyage du Cap-Vert and another related text, written in Joal and dated 26 January 1635, detailing the exact number of baptisms conducted on the Guinea coast. Relation du voyage du Cap-Vert is the record of the missionary work undertaken by de Saint-Lô and Bernard de Renouard on the Petite Côte. The text is 221 pages long, and was first printed in 1637, shortly after de Saint-Lô and de Renouard had returned to France. A summary can be found in C.A. Walckenaer’s Histoire générale des voyages (1825). The work offers an ethnographic description of the region and is an important source for the study of the history of the Catholic missions on the coast of Guinea; it describes a number of Christian communities along the Petite Côte and explores possibilities for the evangelisation and conversion of African people. Thus, it contributes to the understanding of the history of the African continent. The presence of French Capuchin missionaries on the coast of Guinea was transient and the mission purely exploratory (even though baptisms were performed). These first missions sent by the Propaganda Fide to Guinea clashed with the interests of the Portuguese-Spanish monarchy and Portuguese patronage. Nevertheless, the expedition provided pastoral care for areas under the jurisdiction of Portuguese patronage, which either did not, or was unable to, meet the spiritual needs of the Catholic communities of the region, or promote evangelisation. The Relation contains a number of references to Islam, Muslims and interreligious relations. Some of the references pertain to the ‘Turcs’ (Muslims around the Mediterranean), others to West African Muslims, making clear that de Saint-Lô realised there were differences within Islam. A near encounter with a ship thought to belong to Barbary corsairs brought to mind gruesome stories, told by the sailors and faithfully recorded by de Saint-Lô, about people who had been captured and had experienced the ‘cruelties’ of ‘the Turc’ for offending ‘the imposter Mahomet’. The worst cruelty of all was to be used as a sex-slave by the ‘Turcs’, who were known to commit these ‘infamous, detestable acts against nature’, an abomination for which, according to de Saint-Lô, ‘Sodom and Gomorra were rightly destroyed with flames from heaven’. De Saint-Lô used the occasion to instruct the children on board, impressing on them that they



alexis de saint-lô

559

were to resist the ‘Turcs’ until death rather than be captured and made enemies of Christ, meaning here, forcibly converted (pp. 4-6). Once on the Petite Côte, de Saint-Lô observed that the general atmosphere was one of interreligious cordiality. The port of Rufisque was a multi-religious and multi-cultural community, where Roman Catholics, Armenians, Calvinists, Puritans, Lutherans, Jews, Bicherius (itinerant Muslim preachers) and marabouts (Muslim religious teachers) lived together in harmony and friendship (p. 91). The attitude of the marabouts to de Saint-Lô and de Renouard was cordial. When the Capuchins encountered some ‘learned marabouts’ at a funeral, one of these tried to tease them with a story of how he had beheaded a man, who, despite the fact that he had no head, proceeded to talk, displaying knowledge of the law and, at the end of the encounter, replacing his head and walking about as if alive. The man, the marabout concluded, must have been an angel. De Saint-Lô, however, was not amused by the story and responded by ridiculing the marabout and attacking Islam, concluding that, although the marabouts claimed to know Adam and Moses and other biblical characters, Muḥammad was an imposter who burned in hell, as would all who followed him (p. 81). The marabouts, however, proved neither offended nor angry by de Saint-Lô’s harsh words and took their leave in good spirits (pp. 78-83). Generally speaking, de Saint-Lô’s attitude towards Islam and Muslims was condemnatory. When the people in Rufisque asked him whether he and his companion were ‘marabouts’, he vehemently rejected the title because he considered marabouts to be ‘sorcerers’, while he was ‘a servant of God’ (pp. 27-8). In Joal, he accused marabouts of deceiving ‘les pauvres nègres idiots’ by scribbling in a book and claiming these writings were revelations (p. 183). Although de Saint-Lô was, generally speaking, a good observer of Muslim religious practices, for example, noting funeral rituals conducted by marabouts, which included the burial of liquor (!) and cloth, the cordiality of women in polygamous marriages (p. 83), the use of prayer-beads (p. 146) and the observation of Ramadan (p. 153), his view of Islam was generally hostile. Significance De Saint-Lô’s observations document the cultural and religious diversity in the communities on the Petite Côte and demonstrate that the attitude between them was cordial and tolerant. Although he noted this interreligious convivencia, he did not share this attitude. His general outlook

560

alexis de saint-lô

on Islam – as was the case with Calvinists and Lutherans – is hostile and condemnatory, suggesting that the early 17th-century Catholic mission on the Guinea coast could potentially become a destabilising factor in this delicate interreligious equilibrium. Publications Alexis de Saint-Lô, Relation du voyage du Cap Vert, par le R.P. Alexis de S.-Lô et Bernardin de Renouard, Paris: François Taga, 1637; Rouen: D. Ferrand, 1637; bpt6k84376n (digitalised version available through BNF) Studies Recheado, ‘As missões Franciscanas’ M. Frederiks, We have toiled all night. Christianity in The Gambia 14562000, Zoetermeer, 2003, pp. 172-6 Gonçalves, ‘A missionação dos Jesuítas’ Carlene Recheado

John Cotton Date of Birth 4 December 1584 Place of Birth Derby Date of Death 23 December 1652 Place of Death Boston, Massachusetts Bay colony

Biography

A widely respected but often controversial American minister, John Cotton was born in Derby, England, in 1584, and died in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1652. He authored theological works that garnered him fame as a representative of New England Puritanism. Cotton enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of 13, and received his BA in 1603. He then received a fellowship at Emmanuel College, where he earned his MA in 1606 and his Bachelor of Divinity in 1613. He converted to Puritanism while in college. In 1612, he was called to St Botolph’s church in Boston, Lincolnshire, where he served for 20 years. Although he and his church largely managed to avoid prosecution for non-conformity to the various liturgical strictures being imposed by English episcopal authorities, he was ultimately called before the Court of High Commission for not kneeling at the sacrament. He fled to London and then, in 1633, to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay colony, named after the Lincolnshire town, and there he served until his death in 1652. Cotton left an impressive assortment of devotional, ecclesiastical and political works. One of the most popular in his own lifetime was a catechism, Milk for babes (1646). He also wrote Bible commentaries in the form of sermons delivered both before and after his emigration to New England. In addition to a series of sermons on six chapters from Revelation delivered in Boston from 1639 to 1641, of which three volumes were published, he produced exegetical sermons on Ecclesiastes, and two commentaries on Canticles, one preached in England in the 1620s, the other in New England two decades later. These sermons primarily reflect his millenarian views. Cotton believed that the reign of Antichrist had begun in 395 and that the fall of Antichrist would occur in 1655. Cotton’s strict Calvinism embroiled him in the 1637 Antinomian controversy. He rejected preparationist ideas and instead argued that the Holy Spirit converts the soul suddenly. On similar lines, the Antinomians

562

john cotton

asserted that faith itself cannot be demonstrated through works but only through spiritual assurance. When the Antinomians claimed to have derived their ideas from Cotton, he was called before a synod of New England churches to defend himself. His debate and ultimate reconciliation with what eventually became established as orthodox Puritanism was published in several pamphlets and described by Cotton in The way of the congregational churches cleared (1648). Likewise, Cotton became the spokesperson of colonial authority in an exchange with Roger Williams in the mid-1640s. While Williams famously championed the separation of church and state, Cotton, in The bloudy tenant, washed and made white in the bloud of the lambe (1647) and other works, supported a theocracy that opposed religious toleration, for which he has been remembered as a stereotypical intolerant Puritan. Similarly, The keys of the kingdom of heaven (1644) and The way of the churches of Christ in New England (1645) summarise his primitivist desire to restore church organisation and liturgy to only the scriptures exemplified in the early Christian Church seen in the New Testament. He describes biblical limits on church powers and implicitly condemns episcopacy as unscriptural. This work is upheld as the defining description of Puritan ecclesiology. Scholars have also drawn attention to God’s promise to his plantations (1630), the farewell sermon he delivered to passengers, including John Winthrop, departing on the Arbella to settle the Massachusetts Bay colony. In this sermon, Cotton argues that God has providentially chosen New England as a place for his people, citing as evidence the removal of natives through wars that cleared the land for English settlement. He delineates the motivations for emigration, which include not only purity of religion but also financial considerations. (Revisionist scholars point to this sermon as an example of the pragmatic reasons behind the colonising of Massachusetts.) Cotton also left an important genealogical legacy: both his widow, Sarah, and his daughter, Maria, married into the famous puritan Mather family. Sarah married minister and theologian Richard Mather, and Maria married Increase Mather, the president of Harvard and pastor of the influential North Church in Boston. Maria and Increase had several children, including, most notably, the exegete, scientist and minister, Cotton Mather.



john cotton

563

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary John Cotton, God’s promise to his plantations, London, 1630 John Cotton, A brief exposition of the whole book of Canticles, or, Song of Solomon: lively describing the estate of the church in all the ages thereof, both Jewish and Christian, to this day, London, 1642 John Cotton, The churches resurrection, or the opening of the fift and sixt verses of the twentieth chapter of the Revelation, London, 1642 John Cotton, The powring ovt of the seven vials: or an exposition, of the sixteen chapter of the Revelation, with an application of it to our times, London, 1642 John Cotton, The keyes of the kingdom of heaven, and power thereof, according to the word of God, London, 1644 John Cotton, The way of the churches of Christ in New England, London, 1645 John Cotton, Milk for babes, London, 1646 John Cotton, The bloudy tenant, washed, and made white in the bloud of the lambe, London, 1647 John Cotton, The way of the congregational churches cleared, London, 1648 John Cotton, A briefe exposition with practicall observations upon the whole book of Ecclesiastes, London, 1654 John Cotton, A brief exposition with practical observations upon the whole book of Canticles, London, 1655 John Cotton, An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation, London, 1655 J. Norton, Abel being dead, yet speaketh. Or the life and death of that deservedly famous man of God, Mr John Cotton, late teacher of the church of Christ, at Boston, in New England, London, 1658 C. Mather, ‘Cottonus redivivus. Or, the life of Mr. John Cotton’, in Magnalia Christi Americana, London, 1702 S. Bush Jr (ed.), Correspondence of John Cotton, Chapel Hill NC, 2001 Secondary E. Emerson, John Cotton, Boston MA, 1990 L. Ziff, The career of John Cotton. Puritanism and the American experience, Prince­ton NJ, 1962

564

john cotton

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations The powring ovt of the seven vials: or an exposition, of the sixteenth chapter of the Revelation, with an application of it to our time Date 1642 Original Language English Description John Cotton’s Powring ovt of the seven vials is a series of sermons on the New Testament book of Revelation that he preached between 1639 and 1641 in Boston, Massachusetts. It was published in 1642, and covers 190 pages. The section that deals with Islam – the first exposition on the sixth vial – totals 23 pages. The work consists of ten sermons preached upon the seven vials described in Revelation 16. Cotton is believed to have preached on six chapters from Revelation, but his sermons on only three chapters survive. Powring is the second of his three volumes of published sermons on Revelation. Cotton follows the typical format of Protestant sermons in his time: he begins by summarising his previous arguments, then offers exegesis on the present verses in the form of enumerated doctrines. This is followed by reasons explaining his logic in reaching these conclusions, which often includes explaining how these ideas fit within traditional exegesis and refers to other scriptural verses that describe or allude to the same concepts. He usually concludes with uses, which offer practical advice on how his listeners should respond to the message. Occasionally, he anticipates questions, which he calls ‘objections’, and then responds. Cotton addresses Islam primarily in his first and second sermons on the sixth vial. He argues that the seven vials parallel the seven trumpets in Revelation 9, and that, as the sixth trumpet refers to the Turks, so does the sixth vial. Therefore, he rejects the interpretations of other Christian millenarians who claimed that the Euphrates refers to languages, culture or the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, he agrees with the exegetes who propose that the Euphrates refers to the Turks – as it does in Revelation 9:20 – and that the five streams of the Euphrates, which historically had been a bulwark for Babylon, here allegorically refer to five classes of sin that are the bulwarks of the Islamic faith: idolatry, murder, sorcery, fornication and theft. In preparation for a final cosmic battle, the Christian kings would ultimately destroy these five types of



john cotton

565

wickedness, thereby removing the Turks’ source of strength. Although Cotton is highly critical of Islam, the focus of his polemic is the Roman Catholic Church, which he considers to be the true Antichrist. The Turks, he argues, were a judgment on the flaws of the Roman Catholic Church, although they failed to persuade Catholics to renounce their idolatry. Significance Cotton offers little that is revolutionary in his attitude toward Islam, as he depends heavily on the scholarship of the English exegete Thomas Brightman. Brightman (1562–1607), rector of Hawnes, Bedfordshire, wrote a commentary on Revelation, Apocalypsis Apocalypseos. Id est, Apocalypsis D. Ioannis analysi et scholiis illustrata; ubi ex scriptura sensus, rerumque prędictarum ex historijs eventus discutiuntur. Huic synopsis præfigitur universalis: & refutatio Rob. Bellarmini de Antichristo . . . inseritur, posthumously published in Latin in 1609 and in English in 1615. In this, he set out to prove that Presbyterianism is the preferred church order, and that neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Church of England maintained the true faith. He makes a few passing references to the Turks, who he takes for granted are barbarous, cruel and tyrannical: the sounding of the sixth trumpet refers to the Turks invading the world as punishment for Roman Catholic idolatry (p. B2); both the pope and the Turks will be destroyed in order to allow the Jews, who will embrace Christianity, to ‘return to their owne country’ as kings of the East (B3v) in preparation for Jesus’ return; the Turks oppress the Jews and can thus be called the eastern Anti-Christ (p. 638), as the pope is the western Anti-Christ; the Ottomans will be defeated in 1696, 396 years after their rise to power in 1300 (p. 327; this is a common extrapolation from Revelation 9:15). Powring attracts scholarly attention because in it Cotton points to specific historical events from his own lifetime as the unfolding of Revelation 16. Scholars have in particular debated his sermons on the fifth vial, where he suggests that the Scottish Covenanters resisting English episcopacy are one of the woes inflicted upon the Antichrist. He indicates that New England and reformers in England would remove the Antichrist – which he identifies as Roman Catholicism – from England by their good example. This work has been used by modern scholars to refute the ‘errand into the wilderness’ theory proposed by historian Perry Miller in the early 20th century. While Miller and subsequent scholars such as Sacvan Bercovitch have argued that colonists saw themselves as a chosen people, even a new Israel that would literally usher in the

566

john cotton

millennium of Christ, more recent scholars, including Andrew Delbanco and Reiner Smolinski, have countered that the colonists located the kingdom of Christ in Jerusalem and viewed England as the leader of Protestantism. Because he expressly states that the fifth vial will be poured out by Protestant reformers who will eliminate the traces of popery from the English church, Cotton has been cited as an example by revisionist scholars. His remarks on Islam, however, vary so indistinguishably from his contemporaries that they receive scant notice. Publications J. Cotton, The powring out of the seven vials, or, An exposition of the 16 chapter of the Revelation, with an application of it to our times wherein is revealed Gods powring out the full vials of his fierce wrath . . .: preached iu sundry sermons at Boston in New-England, London, 1642; Wing C6449 (digitalised version available through EEBO) J. Cotton, The powring out of the seven vials: or, An exposition of the sixteenth chapter of the Revelation: with an application of it to our times. Wherein is revealed Gods powring out the full vials of his fierce wrath. 1. Upon the lowest and basest sort of Catholikes. 2. Their worship and religion. 3. Their priests and ministers. 4. The house of Austria, and Popes supremacy. 5. Episcopall government. 6. Their Euphrates, or the streame of their supportments. 7. Their grosse ignorance, and blind superstitions. Very fit and necessary for this present age. Preached in sundry sermons at Boston in New-England, London, 1645; Wing C6450 (digitalised version available through EEBO) J. Cotton, The pouring out of the seven vials, Oswestry: Quinta Press, 2011 (reset text based on 1642 edition) Studies J. Chi, ‘ “Forget not the wombe that bare you, and the brest that gave you sucke”. John Cotton’s sermons on Canticles and Revelation and his apocalyptic vision for England’, Edinburgh, 2008 (PhD Diss. University of Edinburgh) R. Smolinski, ‘ “The way to lost Zion”. The Cotton-Williams debate on the separation of church and state in millenarian perspective’, in B. Engler, J. Ficht and O. Scheiding (eds), Millennial thought in America. Historical and intellectual contexts, 1630-1860, Trier, 2002, 61-96



john cotton

567

H. Mixon, ‘ “A city upon a hill”. John Cotton’s apocalyptic rhetoric and the fifth monarchy movement in puritan New England’, The Journal of Communication and Religion 12 (1989) 1-6 T. Bozeman, To live ancient lives. The primitivist dimension in Puritanism, Chapel Hill NC, 1988, pp. 237-62 A. Delbanco, ‘The Puritan errand re-viewed’, Journal of American Studies 18 (1984) 343-60, p. 347 E. Davidson, ‘John Cotton’s biblical exegesis. Method and purpose’, Early American Literature 17 (1982) 119-38, p. 128 Sara Harwood

Manoel de Almeida Date of Birth Between 12 December 1579 and April 1580 Place of Birth Viseu, Portugal Date of Death 10 March 1646 Place of Death Goa

Biography

Manoel de Almeida was born in Viseu, Portugal. Despite his parents’ objection, he became a novice in the Society of Jesus when he was 14 years old. He later studied at Coimbra and met distinguished members of the Society, such as Afonso Mendes, the future Catholic patriarch of Ethiopia, and the Portuguese provincials Simão Álvares and Álvaro Tavares. After his novitiate, de Almeida studied literature and philosophy (for two and four years, respectively). During this time, the Jesuits Francisco Vieira and Alberto Laercio travelled to Portugal from India in search of candidates to increase the diverse enterprises that the Society of Jesus was advancing in the East. Thus, in 1602, accompanied by more than 70 companions of the Order, de Almeida embarked for Goa, capital of Portuguese India, where he continued his theological education and professed the fourth Jesuit vow in 1612. Soon after, Viceroy Jerónimo de Azevedo and Ataide Malafaia appointed him superior of the mission to Ceylon, though this failed due to the great hostility the Jesuits faced from the local inhabitants. After his return to Goa, de Almeida was appointed rector of the College of Baçaim. During these years, the achievements of the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia were such that the Emperor Susənyos and his brother Śəʿəlä Krəstos solicited the General of the Order, Muzio Vitelleschi, to send other missionaries as reinforcements. In 1622, de Almeida set off for Ethiopia accompanied by three other Portuguese Jesuits, Francisco Carvalho, Luis Cardeira and Manoel Barradas. In January 1624, they were received by the baḥər nägaš, governor of the province of Təgray, and soon thereafter by the emperor himself and his brother, who by this time had openly professed Catholicism. During his early years in Ethiopia, de Almeida was able to carry out his missionary work in relative calm. However, in 1629, the unrest caused



manoel de almeida

569

by growing opposition to Catholic policy from sectors of the nobility culminated in the expulsion of the Jesuits from the country. In 1633, de Almeida was forced to abandon Ethiopia, along with some of his Jesuit companions. De Almeida began his important work História da Etiópia a alta, ou Abassia in Gorgora, Ethiopia, at the end of the 1620s, but only completed it between 1643 and 1645, under the instructions of the general of the Order.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Balthazar Tellez, História geral de Ethiópia a alta ou Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os Padres da Companhia de Iesus. Composta na mesma Ethiopia pelo Padre Manoel d’Almeyda, natural de Vizeu, Provincial e Visitador, que foy na India. Abraviada com Nova releyçam, e methodo, pello Padre Balthazar Tellez, Natural de Lisboa, Provincial da Provincia Lusitana: Ambos da mesma Companhia, Coimbra, 1660 C. Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, 14 vols, Rome, 1903-17 Secondary A. Martínez d’Alòs Moner, Envoys of a human God. The Jesuit mission in Ethiopia, 1557-1632, Leiden, 2015, pp. 117-99 M. Klainer, art. ‘Almeida, Manoel’, in S. Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 207-9 G. Beshah and M. Wolde Aregay, The question of the union of the churches in Luso-Ethiopian relations (1500-1632), Lisbon, 1964, pp. 89-104

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations História da Etiópia a alta, ou Abassia História da Etiópia, ‘History of Ethiopia’ Date 1645 Original Language Portuguese Description De Almeida began his História da Etiópia a alta, ou Abassia in Gorgora, Ethiopia, at the end of the 1620s. After his return to Goa and the failed Jesuit attempts to return to Ethiopia, he abandoned the work, and only in 1639, under instructions of the general of the Society, did he return to

570

manoel de almeida

it, completing it between 1643 and 1645. However, although the Jesuit historian Balthazar Tellez published an abridged version in 1660, the work was only published in its entirety in the early 20th century, when Camillo Beccari included it in vols 5-7 of his monumental Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX (vol. 5 is 501 pages, vol. 6 is 505 pages and vol. 7 is 477 pages). The full title of the work is História da Etiópia a alta, ou Abassia, imperio do Abexim, cujo Rey vulgarmente hé chamado Preste Joam. Trata da natureza da terra, e da genteque a povoa dor Reys, que nella ouve; da Fe que tiveram, e tem; e do muito que os Paes da Companhia de Jesus trabalharam polos reducir a verdadeira, e Sancta Fe da Igreia Romana. Composta pelo padre Manoel d’Almeida da Companhia de Jesus, natural de Viseu. The narrative of História da Etiópia is based on local sources, oral information, and works by Jesuit predecessors, and is considered to be generally reliable because de Almeida drew on a balanced variety of sources. The information de Almeida provides about Muslims is occasional and anecdotal; at no point does he show any intention of dealing with Islam systematically or delving into the cultural traits of the many Muslims he came across during his journeys throughout Ethiopia, the Red Sea coasts and the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, Muslims appear in his work mainly as background to the ‘real’ drama, played out by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its interaction with the Catholic missionaries. The earliest mention of Islam and Muslims comes in de Almeida’s description of the territory of Ethiopia, in which he conflates the various peoples he calls ‘Moors’ (the common term for Muslims used by Europeans at the time). He devotes a short chapter to ‘the diverse castes of people who inhabit this empire’, giving information about the number of Muslims and the economic role they play. According to his estimates, Muslims constitute a third of the empire and, since Christians are not allowed inside Arabia and Muslims are better received and welcomed in the Ethiopian port of Massawa, trade and commerce is managed by Muslims, ‘being many of them men rich in silks and gold coming from the East’. All these ‘Moors’, he explains, are of Arab lineage. Occasionally, he remarks on everyday inter-religious tensions within Ethiopian society, centred on the position of the ‘Moor witch doctors’ ( feticeiros), who provoke locust invasions and also exorcise them. Like other 17th-century authors, de Almeida emphasises the ­leading role played by the Portuguese in Ethiopia between 1541 and 1543 in restoring the sovereignty of the Christian empire and liberating Ethiopia from



manoel de almeida

571

Islamic domination. He elaborates on this in Book 3, chs 7-16, providing details of the battles during these years. In contrast to the tensions between Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and Catholics in the 17th century, de Almeida’s accounts are testimony to the harmonious relationship between members of the two churches in the first half of the 16th century, when they confronted their common enemy, Islam. Towards the end of ch. 16, he indicates that he obtained all this information from his predecessor, Pedro Páez, who a few years earlier had written his pioneering work História da Etiópía. De Almeida distinguishes the Moors’ ‘crude temperament’ from the Ethiopians’ kind nature, and attributes the ‘crude character’ of Gälawdewos’ successor, the Emperor Minas, to his being held captive for many years by the Moors and Turks, during which time he acquired their ways. Significance De Almeida’s descriptions suggest a greater interest in Muslims as individuals and groups than in Islam as a faith. His work does not reflect any effort to detail their religious practices or beliefs, but there is instead a clear concern with relations between the Ethiopian Empire and its neighbouring Muslim kingdoms, and the interaction between Muslims and Christians in Ethiopian society. Publications MS London, British Museum – Add. 9861 (no date given) MS Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal – Cod. 1769 (no date given) MS London, School of Oriental and African Studies – 11966 (no date given) MS Braga, Arquivo Distrital de Braga – 779, Cartas Annais das Missões da Etiopia. 264-85, 358-402 (no date given) Balthazar Tellez, História geral de Ethiópia a alta ou Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os Padres da Companhia de Iesus. Composta na mesma Ethiopia pelo Padre Manoel d’Almeyda, natural de Vizeu, Provincial e Visitador, que foy na India. Abraviada com Nova releyçam, e methodo, pello Padre Balthazar Tellez, Natural de Lisboa, Provincial da Provincia Lusitana: Ambos da mesma Companhia, Coimbra, 1660 F.M. Esteves Pereira, Victoria de Amda Sion Rey d’Ethiopia. Com uma versao Franceza por J. Perruchon, Lisbon, 1891 F.M. Esteves Pereira, Vida de Takla Haymanot pelo P. Manuel de Almeida, Lisbon, 1899

572

manoel de almeida

Beccari, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales, vols 5-7; vol. 12, pp. 20-4, 28-30, 48-52, 72-4, 247-89, 294-6; vol. 13, 208-9 G.W.B. Huntingford (ed. and trans.), Some records of Ethiopia, 15931646, being extracts from the History of High Ethiopia or Abassia, by Manoel de Almeida, together with Bahrey’s History of the Galla, London, 1954 (English trans.) Studies H. Pennec, Des Jésuites au Rouyame du Prêtre Jean, Paris, 2003, pp. 255-306 W. Leslau, ‘Ethiopian terminology in Almeida’s report on Ethiopia’, BSOAS 24 (1961) 581-2 E.D. Ross, ‘Almeida’s “History of Ethiopia”. Recovery of the preliminary matter’, BSOAS 2 (1921) 783-804 E.D. Ross, ‘The manuscripts collected by William Marsden with special reference to two copies of Almeida’s “History of Ethiopia” ’, BSOAS 2 (1921) 513-38 Leonardo Cohen

Gaspar de Sevilla Date of Birth Unknown; probably early 17th century Place of Birth Spain Date of Death Unknown; after December 1647 Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Gaspar de Sevilla was a 17th-century priest from the Capuchin Province of Andalusia who came to occupy the position of provincial of Andalusia. Very little is known about him, except that he was among the first group of 14 Spanish Capuchin missionaries from the provinces of Andalusia and Castile sent by Propaganda Fide to work among ‘the heathen and the Muslims in Nigritas’. ‘Nigritas’ was the term used to designate the Guinea Coast from the Sahara desert in the north to present-day Sierra Leone in the south. The Capuchin missionaries reached the African coast on Christmas Eve 1646 and celebrated Christmas with the resident Christians in Portudal, in present-day Senegal. Four of the priests remained on the Petite Côte to work among the small Christian communities in the coastal towns, while the others, among them Gaspar de Sevilla, continued their journey to work along the River Gambia. The Capuchin mission to Nigritas was short-lived. After receiving permission from the king of Barra to work in his territory, Fr Manuel de Granada, as superior of the mission, travelled with two other missionaries to Cacheu to hand their credentials to the archdeacon. En route, they were captured and deported by the Portuguese, who considered the Spanish mission a violation of the padroado granted to Portugal by the pope, according to which the Portuguese oversaw church work in their territories. Hearing of their comrades’ misfortune, all the Capuchins except Fr Antonio de Jimera and Fr Serafim de Leon left Guinea for the Cartagena de Indias (in present-day Columbia) in June 1647. Soon afterwards, Serafim de Leon travelled to Sierra Leone, where he worked until his death in May 1657. Antonio de Jimera seems to have worked in the Gambia area until his death in November 1653. The mission initiated a period of more than 40 years of presence of Spanish clergy on the Guinea coast.

574

gaspar de sevilla

The writings of Gaspar de Sevilla form the most important source on the Spanish Capuchin mission to Guinea. The documents consist of a report, entitled Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné (1647), and letters from Gaspar de Sevilla to ecclesial authorities about the progress of the mission. The first Spanish Capuchin endeavours in Guinea are also mentioned in André de Faro’s report, A relação de André de Faro sobre as missões na Guiné (1663-4), and in the writings of Francisco de Lemos Coelho.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary F.L. Coelho, Duas descrições seiscentistas da Costa da Guiné, manuscritos inéditos publicados com introdução e anotações históricas de Damião Peres, Academia Portuguesa de História, Lisbon, 1953 A. Brásio (ed.), Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd series, Lisbon, 1979, vol. 5, pp. 178-257 Gaspar de Sevilla, ‘Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné’, in Brásio (ed.), Monumenta Missionaria Africana, vol. 5, pp. 459-64 Secondary C. Recheado, ‘As missões Franciscanas na Guiné (século XVII)’, Lisbon, 2010 (MA Diss. Universidade Nova de Lisboa) M.T. Frederiks, We have toiled all night. Christianity in The Gambia 1456-2000, Zoetermeer, 2003, pp. 172-6 M. Gonçalves, ‘A missionação dos Jesuítas e dos Franciscanos nos “Rios da Guiné” no século XVII’, Lisbon, 1991 (MA Diss. University of Lisbon) P. Rema, História das missões Católicas de Guiné, Braga, 1982, pp. 108-34 M. de Anguiano, Misiones Capuchinas en Africa, Madrid, 1957, vol. 2 L. de Faria, A primeira missão dos Capuchinhos em Cabo Verde, Braga, 1954, pp. 10-18 A. de Valencina, Reseña histórica de la provincia Capuchina de Andalucía y varones ilustres en ciencia y virtud que han florecido en ella desde su fundación hasta el presente, Seville, 1906, pp. 1-90

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné, ‘Account of the mission on the Coast of Guinea’ Date 1647 Original Language Spanish



gaspar de sevilla

575

Description Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné is a report of the first Spanish Capuchin mission on the Guinea Coast, which took place from December 1646 to June 1647. Occupying six pages in print, it was written by Fr Gaspar de Sevilla, one of the Capuchin missionaries who participated in the mission. It is dated 23 December 1647, which would seem to suggest that Gaspar de Sevilla began composing it while he was still in Guinea; the document was possibly completed shortly afterwards, after Gaspar de Sevilla and eight other Capuchins had left Guinea for Cartagena de Indias. In this report, Gaspar de Sevilla describes the journey from Cadiz to Portudal (Senegal), giving the details of the Capuchin mission’s work on the Petite Côte and along the River Gambia, as well as the subsequent journey and missionary activity in Cacheu in present-day Guinea Bissau. In addition, the Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné provides important ethnographic information. Gaspar de Sevilla writes about the customs of ‘the natives’, their way of life, food and dress; he describes them as kind and – somewhat optimistically – eager to learn Christian doctrines and to receive catechism lessons. In his report and letters, Gaspar de Sevilla relates that the aim of the Capuchin mission was the evangelisation of ‘the heathen’ and Muslims in Guinea. However, on arrival the missionaries also encountered resident Christians who had not been visited by a priest for many years, so they decided to spend part of their time hearing confessions and celebrating mass for the Christian communities on the Petite Côte and along the River Gambia. The remainder of the time was dedicated to evangelising ‘the heathen’ and Muslims. This proved an uphill struggle. In the villages of Joal and Recife on the Petite Côte, the Capuchins experienced many difficulties due to the strong Islamic presence in the region. An attempt to evangelise Muslim chiefs in the interior was abandoned, because the chiefs ‘were persistent in error and in the sect of Mohammad’. Along the River Gambia, the Capuchins also encountered resistance. Gaspar de Sevilla deferred a number of adult baptisms because he was afraid that his new converts would succumb to ‘the mean doctrines’ of the ‘bequerins maures’ (Moorish theologians) who persistently taught ‘their falsehood and sorceries’. The Capuchins expected better results in Geba, Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone, where the Muslim presence was not as strong.

576

gaspar de sevilla

Significance The report and letters written by Gaspar de Sevilla form a valuable source for the study of the Spanish Capuchin mission in Guinea. The Nigritas mission, instigated by Propaganda Fide in Rome, specifically aimed to evangelise Muslims as well as Africans belonging to traditional religions. The texts describe the Capuchin attempts at evangelisation as well as the responses of the local Africans (animists and Muslims) to the spread of Catholicism. Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné and Gaspar de Sevilla’s letters, are positive about the possibilities of spreading the Christian faith among ‘the heathen’, while at the same time identifying the strong Islamic presence in the northern regions of Guinea as a barrier to Christian missionary work. From his work, it is evident that Gaspar de Sevilla considered Muslim marabouts to be the spiritual rivals of the Capuchins, and the Muslim religion a major obstacle to the spread and consolidation of Christianity in Guinea. He therefore deemed it more productive to work in areas where the influence and presence of Muslims was limited. Publications MS Rome, Archive Propaganda Fide – SRCG, 108 (4 April 1645, Seville; a letter from Gaspar de Sevilla in Seville to the Papal Nuncio in Madrid, together with two letters from him in Antequera to officials of the Propaganda Fide) MS Rome, Archive Propaganda Fide – SRCG, 110 (25 October 1645; a letter from Frei Gaspar de Sevilla in Antequera to the Secretary of Propaganda Fide) MS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España – 3818 (1647; Gaspar de Sevilla’s report from San Guirigu) Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, vol. 5, pp. 386, 387, 388, 411-12, 417-19, 420-21 N.I. de Moraes, ‘La mission des capuchins espagnols en Senegambie au xviie siècle (1646-1647)’, Afrika Zamani 16-17 (1986) 62-93 (French trans. of Sevilla’s report from San Guirigu) Studies C. Recheado, ‘A viagem de frei André de Faro à Guiné (1663 e 1664)’, Revista Lusófona de Ciências das Religiões 18-19 (2013) 105-14 Recheado, ‘As missões Franciscanas na Guiné’ Gonçalves, ‘A missionação dos Jesuítas e dos Franciscanos’ Frederiks, We have toiled all night, pp. 172-6



gaspar de sevilla

577

H.P. Rema, ‘A primeira missão franciscana da Guiné (séculos XVIIXVIII)’, Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa 23 (1968) 89-156 H.P. Rema, ‘As primeiras missões na Costa da Guiné (1533-1640)’, Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa 85 (1967) 225-68 Anguiano, Misiones Capuchinhas en Africa, vol. 2 de Faria, ‘A primeira missão dos Capuchinhos’, pp. 10-18 Carlene Recheado

Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥaymī Date of Birth 1608 or 1609 Place of Birth Al-Ḥayma, Yemen Date of Death 1660 or 1661 Place of Death Kawkabān, Yemen

Biography

Practically nothing is known about the life of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ (or Ṣalāḥ) ibn Duʿays ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamza al-Ḥaymī, and there are only limited scattered data from which to reconstruct his biography. He was probably born in al-Ḥayma (hence his main nisba ‘al-Ḥaymī’, by which he is most commonly known), an area near Kawkabān (north-west of Ṣanʿāʾ; from here comes his other nisba al-Kawkabānī), in 1608 (or, according to other sources, in 1609) to a Zaydī family, and died in the month of Dhū l-ḥijja in either 1660 or 1661 (1070 or 1071 AH), depending on the source. The two further nisbas attributed to him (al-Yūsufī and al-Jamālī) apparently point to his belonging to two branches of the large Yāfiʿ tribe in northern Yemen. Al-Ḥaymī was one of the most outstanding Yemeni learned men and a high-ranking official during the reigns of Imam al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Muḥammad ibn al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim (d. 1644) and his brother ­al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Ismāʿīl (d. 1676). He possessed considerable rhetorical and diplomatic skills, with which he carried out some difficult missions on behalf of the Yemeni ruling imams. For example, he was sent to the Ḥaḍramawt where the Āl Kathīr tribes were at war. He mediated between the sultans and managed to settle the dispute and bring peace to the region. His most important and famous mission was probably to Fasilädäs, the emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1667). Al-Ḥaymī described this mission in his Sīrat al-Ḥabasha. Probably on his return from Ethiopia, he settled in Shibām Ḥimyar and was appointed governor (or qāḍī) of Kawkabān, a position he held until his death. He had at least two sons: al-qāḍī Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad and Yaḥyā. He performed the ḥajj three times. Apart from his travelogue to Ethiopia, al-Ḥaymī apparently wrote no other work of prose. Poetry has been attributed to him, and a collection of his poems has been released by his grandchild under the title Lidhdhat al-wasan (MS Berlin – 8430).



ḥasan ibn aḥmad al-ḥaymī

579

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Muḥammad Amīn ibn Faḍl Allāh al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar, Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Wahība, 1867-8, vol. 2, pp. 16-17 Muḥammad Amīn ibn Faḍl Allāh al-Muḥibbī, Nafḥat al-rayḥāna wa-rashḥat ṭilāʾ al-ḥāna, Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya/ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī wa-shurakāʾuh, 1968, vol. 3, pp. 429-30 Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr wa-majmaʿ al-buḥūr, Ṣanʿāʾ: Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 2004, vol. 2, pp. 8-21 Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Shawkānī, Al-badr al-ṭāliʿ bi-maḥāsin man baʿd al-qarn al-sābiʿ, Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-Islāmī, 1930, vol. 1, pp. 189-91 Secondary E.J. van Donzel, art. ‘Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Ḥaymī’, in S. Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2005, vol. 2, pp. 1040-1 Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, Al-a‘lām, Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li-l-Malāyīn, 2002, vol. 2, p. 182 ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Abbās al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-zaydiyya, McLean VA: Imam Zayd bin Ali Cultural Foundation, 1999, pp. 294-5 Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane. Maṣādir ta⁠ʾrīkh al-Yaman fī l-ʿaṣr al-islāmī, Cairo: IFAO, 1974, pp. 235-6 ʿUmar Riḍāʾ al-Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, Damascus: Maṭbaʿat al-Taraqqī, 1957, vol. 3, p. 199 C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, vol. 2, Berlin, 1902, p. 402, Supplement 2, Leiden, 1938, pp. 550-1

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Sīrat al-Ḥabasha Sīrat al-Ḥaymī Ṭaraf al-akhbār min natāʾij al-asfār Ḥadīqat al-naẓar wa-bahjat al-fikar fī ʿajāʾib al-safar Taʾrīkh al-Ḥabasha Sīrat al-qāḍī Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan fī dukhūlih arḍ al-Ḥabasha ‘A Yemenite embassy to Ethiopia’ Date Approximately 1650 Original Language Arabic

580

ḥasan ibn aḥmad al-ḥaymī

Description Sīrat al-Ḥabasha was written by al-Ḥaymī in around 1650 in Kawkabān, allegedly at the request of Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Ismāʿīl (d. 1668). The author presents his text as a travelogue narrating his mission to the Christian empire of Ethiopia and his almost nine-month stay at the court of the emperor. However, al-Ḥaymī writes that he does not wish to compose a serious, detailed and well-structured report of his travels and diplomatic efforts. In its own words, his text is ‘only a report on what can be perceived’ (van Donzel, Yemenite embassy, p. 87; the references that follow are all to this edition). Thus, the Sīra abounds in descriptions of impressive natural landscapes, exotic animals and ‘uncivilised’ peoples, which are intended to be entertaining rather than informative. It can therefore be classified as belonging to the genre of adab within the Arabic literary tradition. The text takes up 252 pages in van Donzel’s 1986 edition, which contains the Arabic original text and an annotated English translation. Al-Ḥaymī left Yemen for Ethiopia in July 1647, as an official emissary of the Zaydī imam of Yemen, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Ismāʿīl. The diplomatic mission took place within a relatively complicated geopolitical framework. In January 1642, the Emperor Fasilädäs of Ethiopia invited the Yemeni imam, al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Muḥammad (d. 1644), to establish cordial commercial relations through the small port town of Baylūl on the Red Sea. Fasilädäs’s plan was to divert the traditional trade route from Massawa, which was under the control of the Ottomans, enemies of both the Ethiopians and the Zaydī Yemenis (pp. 30-7). In January/ February 1643, the imam replied with a long but vague letter, consisting almost exclusively of excerpts from the Qur’an and ritualistic formulas, but with no mention of the issue of the new trade route (pp. 36-51). However, the matter did not end there. In 1647, Fasilädäs sent a messenger with a letter to al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh, but the imam died while the envoy was on his way to Yemen. Fasilädäs decided to write a further letter to the new imam, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh. Al-Ḥaymī reports that this and the other letter contained a request to send an envoy, to whom a secret would be disclosed that was not expressed in the written documents. The imam asked what the emperor’s hidden aim could be and the messenger, a – possibly Ethiopian – Muslim called al-ḥājj Sālim ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥīm, responded that he thought the emperor wanted to embrace Islam (pp. 92-5). After a consultation with his courtiers, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh, convinced of the emperor’s intention to convert to Islam, summoned al-Ḥaymī and appointed him messenger to Fasilädäs. The imam



ḥasan ibn aḥmad al-ḥaymī

581

gave him two letters, one public and one secret, the latter to be given to the Ethiopian emperor only during a private audience and, moreover, only if the emperor showed a genuine interest in becoming a Muslim. According to his Sīra, al-Ḥaymī travelled between 4 July 1647 and 20 March 1648, when he entered Gondar, the Ethiopian capital city, where he stayed until 16 December 1648. In Gondar, he was granted three audiences with the emperor. The last audience (26 March 1648) was private, and al-Ḥaymī expected Fasilädäs to express his intention of becoming a Muslim, though this evidently did not happen. Al-Ḥaymī respected the confidentiality of the meeting and did not reveal the content of his conversation with the emperor, which most probably concerned the new trade route from Ethiopia to Yemen via Baylūl. He considered his mission to have failed completely and decided to travel back as soon as possible, passing through Ottoman Massawa. His intended departure provoked a reaction from the emperor, who tried his best to delay it, and, further impeded by the rainy season, al-Ḥaymī found himself obliged to remain in Gondar until 16 December 1648. He eventually left the Ethiopian capital and reached Massawa, passing through Debarwa. From the Ottoman port, he sailed to Luḥayya and arrived in Shaḥāra on 18 March 1649. The main textual core of the Sīra is not programmatically devoted to the analysis and criticism of religious belief and practice. It is rather the situations he confronts during his travels and sojourn in Ethiopia that prompt the author, a convinced and devout Zaydī learned man, to express his views on matters related to religion, morals and ethics. Practically all of the various religious groups present in Ethiopia at that time become the objects of al-Ḥaymī’s cursory observations. Sunnī Muslims, Ethiopian (and Egyptian) Orthodox Christians, Ethiopian Jews and Ethiopian polytheists are all judged by the Yemeni ambassador whenever he happens to meet any of them. The following is an attempt to collect and summarise al-Ḥaymī’s opinions: 1) Sunnī Muslims: Al-Ḥaymī expresses a very low opinion of the coastal Muslims of the Baylūl region. For him, they are merely nominal Muslims and do not respect the tenets of Islam. He is particularly shocked by the inhabitants of the Danakil region, with their sexual promiscuity and constant nakedness, which for him make them more like animals than humans. The Ethiopian Muslims whom al-Ḥaymī meets on his way to Gondar are more appreciated. In particular, he praises Kabīrī Khayr al-Dīn, a representative of the Shāfi‘ī school of law, with whom he holds discussions after they perform the prayer of the ʿĪd al-aḍḥā together in

582

ḥasan ibn aḥmad al-ḥaymī

a Christian village. In the Ethiopian capital city Gondar, al-Ḥaymī is accommodated in a Muslim ‘village’ (possibly the Muslim quarter of the city), where he ‘felt completely at home’ (p. 145) thanks to the presence of a mosque, a qur’anic school and the availability of halāl food. In Gondar, al-Ḥaymī is approached by amīr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, a Muslim from Sawākin (in present-day Sudan), sent by Muḥammad, the pasha of Massawa, to collect information about the Yemenite mission. Although this individual is a Sunnī Muslim and, moreover, a representative of the great political and military rival of the Yemenite Zaydī imam, al-Ḥaymī is sincerely delighted to meet him, depicting him as versed in religious culture, polite and well-mannered. His desire to leave Ethiopia as soon as possible through Massawa pushes the author to get closer to this man, in order to secure his help and support to organise his journey back to Yemen. 2) Ethiopian (and Egyptian) Orthodox Christians: Ethiopians are strongly criticised by al-Ḥaymī, who considers them as lacking any good quality or nobility of character. In particular, the courtiers of Fasilädäs are described as extremely corrupt, greedy and inefficient. At Fasilädäs’s court the Yemeni messenger meets some Ethiopian Orthodox monks to whom he takes a complete dislike for their ignorance and lack of any knowledge of the doctrine of their own religion and belief. The Yemeni messenger also meets a pupil of the deposed Orthodox patriarch of Ethiopia (the Copt abunä Marqos), called Khāṭirūs (an Arabic-speaking Copt from Egypt); as the two become more closely acquainted, they start discussing religion. The Christian is sincerely intrigued by Islam, especially the alms and care for the poor and destitute that Muslim law prescribes to the faithful. Were it not for his high rank in the Ethiopian church and state, Khāṭirūs would have liked to follow al-Ḥaymī to Yemen, on the condition he be allowed to keep his religion. The Yemeni ambassador answers that many Christians and Jews live unharmed in his country, asked only to pay the jizya. Also, the author becomes increasingly curious about Christianity, and asks for a copy of the Gospel in Arabic; Khāṭirūs brings him the first of a set of three volumes comprising the Gospel (possibly the whole New Testament). Al-Ḥaymī reads the text for ten days, experiencing complete disappointment that he can find in it only religious exhortations but no legal prescriptions, which is it what he was interested in. 3) Ethiopian Jews (Falāsha): Jews are also mentioned in al-Ḥaymī’s travelogue, characterised as a brave and intrepid people involved in a



ḥasan ibn aḥmad al-ḥaymī

583

long and harsh battle with the Ethiopian emperor. They are eventually subdued and mainly converted to Christianity, with only a few remaining followers of the sharīʿa of the Torah. 4) Pagan Oromo: the Oromo (called Qāllah in the text) are described by al-Ḥaymī as a warrior people, brave and strong, and partially resembling the Mongols (Tatār). Their courage and endurance inspire respect in the author. Conversion from one religious tradition to another seems to have been a common phenomenon in Ethiopia at the time. In the course of his travels, al-Ḥaymī witnesses three episodes involving a change of religion. An Ethiopian Christian from the highlands spontaneously embraces Islam in front of the Yemeni mission, while his kinsfolk attempt to force him back to Christianity. The Ethiopian guide accompanying al-Ḥaymī intervenes and the convert is left in peace. The court interpreter of the Ethiopian emperor is a sharīf with possible origins from Bukhāra (Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Bukhārī) who had converted to Christianity; while al-Ḥaymī is naturally horrified by this apostasy, he cannot help praising the perfection with which the apostate performs his role. A Muslim woman from Massawa converts to Christianity, while her two daughters and their aunt flee to Gondar, pursued by the apostate woman. The three Muslim women take shelter in the house of one of al-Ḥaymī’s companions, and when the renegade woman comes to reclaim them, together with a group of Christians, the Muslims react vehemently, pushing the Christians away. Subsequently, al-Ḥaymī arranges for the transfer of the Muslim women back to Massawa. Besides the description of his travels and sojourn, al-Ḥaymī also includes in his Sīra two long poems (pp. 196-207), which he composed in Gondar out of disappointment and rage after realising that the emperor had no intentions of converting to Islam and his situation had become difficult and unpleasant. The two qaṣīdas contain polemical references to some basic Christian dogmas (the Trinity and the nature of Jesus) and to the deviant practices of superficial Muslims. They also remind the reader of the background of the Sīra, which is not only a simple collection of travel experiences but a report of a complicated political mission. Significance Sīrat al-Ḥabasha is attested in 18 different manuscripts (described in van Donzel, Yemenite embassy, pp. 73-81) originating from various countries within the Islamic world and currently preserved in many different libraries both within and outside Europe. This wide manuscript

584

ḥasan ibn aḥmad al-ḥaymī

tradition proves the popularity of the Sīra and the appreciation that the text acquired, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Europe, the Sīra became known in 1883; since then, all of al-Ḥaymī’s accounts and travel impressions, and especially his experiences at the court of the Ethiopian emperor, have been used as a first-hand source by historians and anthropologists interested in 17th-century Ethiopia. Publications For a list of MSS of the work, see van Donzel, Yemenite embassy, pp. 73-81. F.E. Peiser, Der Gesandtschaftsbericht des Ḥasan ben Aḥmed El-Ḫaimî, Berlin, 1894 (repr. 1994, Frankfurt; Arabic text) F.E. Peiser, Zur Geschichte Abessiniens im 17. Jahrhundert. Der Gesandtschaftsbericht des Hasan ben Ahmed El-Ḫaimî, Berlin, 1898 (German trans.) Murād Kāmil, Sīrat al-Ḥabasha. Ta⁠ʾlīf al-Ḥaymī al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad, Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-Shuʾūn al-Maṭābiʿ al-Amīriyya, 1958 (19722; Arabic text) E.J. van Donzel, A Yemenite embassy to Ethiopia, 1647-1649. Al-Ḥaymī’s ‘Sīrat al-Ḥabasha’ newly introduced, translated and annotated, Stuttgart, 1986 (Äthiopistische Forschungen 21) Studies van Donzel, ‘Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥaymī’ F. Pretorius, ‘Ein arabischer Dokument zur äthiopischen Geschichte’, Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 49 (1885) 403-10 F.-C. Muth, ‘Al-Ḥaimī’s Gesandtschaftsreise nach Äthiopien (1647–1648 n. Chr.) in der Darstellung bei Ibn Abī r-Riǧāl’s Maṭlaʿ al-budūr wa-maǧmaʿ al-buḥūr’, Folia Orientalia 39 (2003) 47-70 Alessandro Gori

Afonso Mendes Date of Birth 20 August 1579 Place of Birth Santo Aleixo, Portugal Date of Death 29 June 1656 Place of Death Goa

Biography

Afonso Mendes was appointed as the third Catholic patriarch of Ethiopia by King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal in 1621 (following João Nunes Barreto and Andre de Oviedo). His service coincided with the last years of the reign of the Emperor Susənyos (r. 1607-32), in the period in which Catholicism was established by the emperor as the official religion of Ethiopia. Mendes was born in the province of Alentejo, close to the Spanish border. His first acquaintance with the Society of Jesus was during his studies at Coimbra. In February 1593, at the age of 14, he entered the Order and studied philosophy, humanist letters and theology at the University of Coimbra. He was promoted to the chair of Sacred Scripture, and in 1618 he received his doctorate in theology from the University of Evora. King Philip IV appointed Mendes as Catholic patriarch of Ethiopia at the beginning of his reign; his decision soon received the endorsement of the pope. Mendes was consecrated as patriarch at the Church of São Roque in Lisbon in March 1623, and set sail from Lisbon at the end of March, arriving in Goa on 28 May 1624. On 24 June, he arrived in Fəremona, and he was received with great respect by the emperor in Dänqäz. During his period as patriarch, Mendes attempted to strengthen and centralise Catholicism in Ethiopia. He announced several reforms towards this goal: no priest was to offer mass or perform any ecclesiastical function until he had first received faculties from the patriarch, churches were re-consecrated, the liturgy was reformed, fasts and festivals were arranged according to the Tridentine calendar, disputes between husband and wife were transferred from civil to ecclesiastical courts, circumcision was prohibited, and the faithful were re-baptised. In the late 1620s, the increasing number of priests allowed Mendes to

586

afonso mendes

expand the activity of the mission and open additional missionary centres in Liqä Nəguś, Ḥadaša and Ǝnnäbäse, among others. In addition, he actively promoted the mission among the Agäw people of Agäw Mədər. When the Emperor Susənyos understood that his kingdom was lost due to the strong opposition to Catholicism that had developed in the country, he decided to grant religious freedom. Mendes proposed a compromise: religious freedom for those who had not yet received the Catholic faith, until the empire had recovered, though he was not about to let those who had already been converted and confirmed as Catholics recant. Susənyos refused this, because he knew he had no alternative. With the increase in peasant uprisings and the nobility’s dissatisfaction with Catholicism, the political and religious situation became unsustainable for both emperor and patriarch. The emperor abdicated and was replaced by his son Fasilädäs, and Mendes departed for India together with nine other missionaries. He arrived in Goa a year later after being held captive in Sawākin (1635). Mendes spent the rest of his life in Goa. There, he embarked on failed attempts to return to Ethiopia, and to persuade the king of Portugal – after the separation of the Portuguese and Spanish thrones – to send Portuguese soldiers to capture the ports of Massawa and Sawākin from the Turks and help the Jesuits restore the Catholic mission in Ethiopia. Mendes’ two important works are Bran-Haymanot (‘Light of faith’), divided into 12 books that recount and refute the ‘errors’ of the Oriental Churches, and Expeditio Aethiopica, which deals with Ethiopia’s history and geography and with the history of the Jesuit mission in the country. In contrast to other Jesuits such as de Almeida, Páez and Barradas, Mendes was a fervent Latinist who wrote all his compositions in Latin instead of using the vernacular Portuguese.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary M. da Veiga, Relacam geral do estado da Christandade de Ethiopia; Reduçam dos Scismaticos; Entrada, & e Recibimiménto do Patriarcha Dom Affonso Mendes; Obediencia dada pelo Emperador Seltā Segued com toda sua Corte à Igreja Romana; & do que de novo socedeo no descobriméto do Tybet, a que chamam, gram Catayo, Lisbon, 1628, pp. 1-102 Afonso Mendes, Bran Haimanot: Id est. Lux Fidei in Ephitalamium Aethiopissae sive in Nuptias Verbi et Ecclesiae, Goa, 1642



afonso mendes

587

B. Tellez, História geral de Etiópia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os Padres da Companhia de Iesus. Composta na mesma Ethiopia pelo Padre Manoel dAlmeyda, natural de Vizeu, Provincial e Visitador, que foy na India. Abraviada com Nova Releyçam, e Methodo, pello Padre Balthazar Tellez, Natural de Lisboa, Provincial da Provincia Lusitana: Ambos da mesma Companhia, Coimbra, 1660, pp. 693-702 A. Franco, ‘Vida do Patriarca de Ethiópia Dom Afonso Mendes’, in A. Franco, Imagem da virtude em o Noviciado da Companhia de Jesus no Real Collegio de Jesus de Coimbra em Portugal: na qual se contem as vidas, & sanctas mortes de muitos homens de grande virtude, Coimbra, 1719, vol. 1, pp. 301-47 Secondary L. Cohen, ‘The Catholic Kingdom of Ethiopia. Father Manuel de Almeida’s account of the imperial conversion ceremony’, Lusitania Sacra 29 (2014) 143-79 L. Cohen, art. ‘Mendes, Afonso’, in S. Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2007, vol. 3, pp. 920-1 A. Santos Hernández, Jesuitas y obispados, vol. 2: Los Jesuitas obispos misioneros y los obispos Jesuitas de la extinción, Madrid, 2000, pp. 50-5 A. Santos Hernández, ‘Évora y el espíritu misionero de los jesuitas en Portugal’, Miscelánea Comillas 38 (1962) 151-2 G. Beshah and M. Wolde Aregay, The question of the union of the churches in Luso-Ethiopian relations, Lisbon, 1964, pp. 89-104 A. Kammerer, ‘L’ephémère triomphe du catholicisme en Abyssinie (1622-1632)’, Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique 60 (1946) 260-93 O. Rousseau, ‘Infructueux essais de rapprochement en Éthiopie au XVIIe siècle’, Irenikon 8 (1931) 27-36 A. de Andrade, ‘Padre Afonso Mendes Patriarca de Etiopía’, in Varones Ilustres de la Compañí a de Jesús, vol. 2: Misiones de la China, Goa, Etiopí a, Malabau, Bilbao, 1889, 529-81

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Expeditio Aethiopica, and letters, ‘Ethiopian expedition’, and letters Date 1622-55 Original Language Latin Description Afonso Mendes’ Expeditio Aethiopica, written in Latin, is primarily concerned with ecclesiastical matters, but includes a description of his journey through the Danakil desert, which is especially relevant to the

588

afonso mendes

question of Muslim-Christian relations. It seems that Mendes worked on this book until 1654. In one of his last letters, which he sent to Pedro de Valadares in that same year, Mendes explains that he had sent his book to Lisbon for printing, but some of the copies had been lost on the way. In the same letter, he includes a list of corrections and amendments on the new manuscript of the book, in order to clarify and to add information about new events in Ethiopia during the last decade. Expeditio Aethiopica is divided into four books (a total of 843 pages in the two-volume edition by Camillo Beccari). Mendes’ letters can be found in volumes 12 and 13 of Beccari’s edition: letters addressed to Bernardo Nogueira in Ethiopia, Severim de Faria, the Emperor Fasilädäs, Pope Urban VIII, King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, Mutio Vitelleschi, the General of the Order of Jesus, King João IV of Portugal, as well as a variety of letters to the superiors of the Congregatio Sacra de Propaganda Fide. As other Jesuit missionaries had done before him, Afonso Mendes undertook the long journey from Goa, passing through Diu and to the Red Sea, in an attempt to reach the coasts of Sawākin or Massawa and finally enter Ethiopia. These journeys offer the main information in his writings about Islam and Muslims, as at no time in his life did Mendes show any inclination to probe in detail the beliefs or rituals of Islam. His greatest religious and most controversial work is Bran-Haymanot, which is an attempt to refute the heresies and schismatic movements within Christianity in order to return them to the path of the true faith. In a letter addressed to the Jesuit Provincial of Portugal in June 1625, Mendes tells of having reached the port of Baylūl, where they were received by the local shaykh, who had been informed by an emissary sent by the emperor of Ethiopia three years earlier of the arrival of Portuguese fathers coming to serve the kingdom of Ethiopia. In his collected letters, Mendes marks the difficulties experienced by the Jesuits passing through ports under Ottoman rule, in contrast to Baylūl, which was governed by the king of Dankáli (the name traditionally given by Arabs to the ʿAfar in the Horn of Africa), explaining that, despite being a Muslim, the king was ‘almost a vassal’ of the emperor of Ethiopia, and hence looked benignly on the arrival of Catholic missionaries. It can be seen in Mendes’ references to Islam that he perceives the faith as loose, permissive and spineless. When at the end of the fourth decade of the 17th century rumours circulated that the Emperor Fasilädäs intended to convert to Islam, Mendes attributes such leanings to temperamental swings common among Abyssinians and ‘Moors’. As becomes



afonso mendes

589

evident in a letter from 1648, the disaffection of Ethiopians for the Portuguese derives from the fact that the Portuguese are more constant in their faith and more courageous than the Ethiopians. ‘The affection for the Moors comes from being so like them about circumcision, freeing women, fasting, and many other rituals which all seem alike’. A fundamental concern of the emperor was to neutralise any attempt by the Portuguese to return to Ethiopia. The hostile attitude of Fasilädäs towards the Portuguese, and his preference for establishing dialogue and diplomatic relations with Muslim kingdoms, is well-documented in the correspondence of the period. Fasilädäs never did convert to Islam, although it is evident from Expeditio Aethiopica and Mendes’ letters, that Mendes still thought his leaning towards Islam was a form of antagonism towards the Portuguese and Catholicism. Beyond the preconceptions and the hostility that Mendes felt for forms of non-Catholic Christianity, as well as for Muslims and Jews, the humiliation he experienced when he was being delivered into the hands of the Turks at the ports of Massawa and Sawākin after being expelled from Ethiopia, left a lasting impression on the way he perceived Muslims. Together with several of his companions, Mendes was made captive by the Turkish pasha of Sawākin until Indian merchants paid their ransom, allowing them to embark to Diu in early 1635. The memory of the events that had occurred a hundred years earlier, when 400 Portuguese soldiers helped free Ethiopia from Muslim conquest, permanently resounds in the writings of Mendes and his companions; he recalls the ingratitude of Ethiopians when they betrayed the Portuguese and expelled them. Fasilädäs’ leaning towards Islam is perceived as an act of treachery and cruelty to his forebears. ‘But now that the accursed Fasilädäs has become a Moor, would there be a star that would not fall from the heavens?’ bewails Mendes in one of his letters. Mendes perceived the Ethiopian temperament as accommodating, just as he perceived Muslims as having an undisciplined character. He saw Ethiopian Christians as flexible and complacent, never seriously committing to the Roman faith. Thus, in his eyes Muslims and Ethiopian Christians came into the same category. Significance Expeditio Aethiopica and Mendes’ letters are important for understanding the theological disputes between Catholics and Orthodox Ethiopians of the first half of the 17th century. Within this context, the sporadic allusions to Islam and Muslims are relatively limited. In these allusions,

590

afonso mendes

Illustration 14. Frontispiece to Jeronimo Lobo, Relation historique d’Abbysinie, depicting Afonso Mendes meeting the Emperor Fasilädäs



afonso mendes

591

Mendes shows a hostile attitude towards Muslim beliefs and practices and, even more, a perception of Islam as a loose and permissive religion suited to the nature of Ethiopians, who for that very same reason rejected the Catholic faith. Mendes’ texts do not provide detailed information about Islam, but rather spontaneous brushstrokes regarding certain customs and the political reality of power relations between Christians and Muslims on the coasts of the Red Sea based on his personal experience. Publications MS Braga, Arquivo Distrital de Braga – 779, Cartas annais das missões da Etiopia, fols 286-302v, 304-19, 342-56v, 477-500, 559-69, 644-6v, 505-16, 699 (Date unknown) Afonso Mendes, Carta do Patriarcha de Ethiopia Dom Afonso Mendez, escrita de sua propria mão ao muyto Reverendo Padre Mutio Viteleschi Preposito Geral da Companhia de Iesus; na qual se contem o que sua Illustrissima Senhoria, com os demais padres da Companhia que andão naquelle grande Imperio fizerão de serviço de Deos, & bem das almas, o anno de 1629, Lisbon, 1631; bpt6k8410789.r (digitalised version available through BNF) Afonso Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopica, in C. Beccari (ed.), Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores oocidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, Rome, 1903-17, vols 8 and 9 Afonso Mendes, ‘letters’, in Beccari (ed.), Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores oocidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, vol. 12, pp. 3-13, 82-5, 91-9, 104-12, 120-62, 170-1, 334-53, 359-405, 485-500, 508-15, 520-3; vol. 13, pp. 3-7, 10-12, 84-91, 112-15, 119-22, 125-6, 133-4, 146-52, 155-6, 162-85, 193-4, 196-7, 210, 212-16, 218-42, 250-6, 258-64, 274-81, 290-1, 295-320, 329-31, 361-9, 379-82, 387-414 Jerónimo Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, ed. M. Gonçalves da Costa with C.F. Beckingham and D.M. Lockhart, Lisbon, 1971, pp. 244-65 Leonardo Cohen

Balthazar Tellez Date of Birth 11 January 1596 Place of Birth Lisbon Date of Death 20 April 1675 Place of Death Lisbon

Biography

Balthazar Tellez (also Teles) was a Jesuit author. The son of a British captain, he entered the Society of Jesus as a novice at Coimbra in 1610, taking his simple vows that year and his solemn vows in 1631. He taught humanities, philosophy and theology for nine years at the colleges of Braga, Coimbra, Evora and Lisbon, where he rose to senior leadership positions. In 1624, he published Summa universae philosophiae in Lisbon. Tellez was later appointed rector of the Irish seminary of St Patrick, a seminary at the Santo Antão College, and superior of São Roque. Between 1657 and 1661, he served as the provincial of the Society of Jesus in Portugal. Tellez also authored a philosophy course, which many schools subsequently adopted as a textbook. Notable for its conciseness and clarity, this course displays his extensive knowledge of the era’s advances in the natural sciences, including astronomy. Tellez planned to write a similar course on theology, but a prestigious commission he received to produce several works of history kept him from realising this goal. His two most important works are Chronica da Companhia de Jesu, na provincia de Portugal and História geral de Etiópia a Alta. The former is among the most important Portuguese historical narratives about the constitution of the Society of Jesus in Portugal. The text has striking, uplifting characteristics that testify to Tellez’ intention to exalt and praise the Society’s work. The latter, which is the more important of the two on Muslim-Christian relations, focuses on the Jesuit presence in 16th and 17th century Ethiopia.



balthazar tellez

593

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Balthazar Tellez, Summa universae philosophiae, Ulyssipone, 1642 Balthazar Tellez, Chronica da Companhia de Jesu, na provincia de Portugal; e do que fizeram, nas conquistas d’esta Reyno, os Religiosos, que na misma provincia entraram, nos annos em que viveo Sam Ignacio de Loyola, nosso Fundador. Primeira Parte, na qual se contem os principios d’esta Provincia no tempo, em que se fundou, e governou o P. Simam Rodrigues, com a sua sancta vida e morte, Lisbon, 1645 Balthazar Tellez, Chronica da Companhia de Jesu, na provincia de Portugal. Segunda parte, na qual se contem as vidas de lagus religiosos mais assinalados, que na mesma Provincia entraram, nos anos em que viveu S. Ignacio de Loyola, nosso fundador. Com o summario das vidas dos serenissimos reis D. João III e D. Henrique, fundadores e insignes bemfeytores desta provincia, Lisbon, 1647 Balthazar Tellez, Summa philosophiae: in quatuor partes distributa: qum quaestionibus theologicis, quae hodie Inter philosophos agitantur, Ulyssipone, 1652 Secondary A. Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, art. ‘Tellez, Balthazar’, in S. Uhlig and A. Bausi (eds), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2010, vol. 4, p. 914 N. da Silva Gonçalves, ‘Baltasar Teles. Cronista da Companhia de Jesus’, in Quando os frades faziam história. De Marcos de Lisboa a Simão de Vasconcelos, Porto, 2004, 95-100 I. Carneiro de Sousa, art. ‘Teles, Padre Baltasar’, in Grande enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, Lisbon, 1945, vol. 31, 124-7

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations História geral de Etiópia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, ‘A history of Upper Ethiopia or Prester John’ Date 1660 Original Language Portuguese Description The História geral de Etiópia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os Padres da Companhia de Iesus. Composta na mesma Ethiopia pelo Padre Manoel d’Almeyda, natural de Vizeu, Provincial e Visitador, que foy na India. Abraviada com Nova Releyçam, e Methodo, pello Padre Balthazar Tellez, Natural de Lisboa, Provincial da Provincia Lusitana: Ambos da

594

balthazar tellez

mesma Companhia (Coimbra, 1660) is comprised of six books (736 pages in the 1660 edition). It is not the most important 17th-century work written about Ethiopia, and some critics, such as Kurt Krause, have been severe in their judgement of it, suggesting that Tellez summarised and embellished to his liking Manoel Almeida’s book (História de Etiópia a Alta, ou Abassia), exchanging its ‘simplicity of style, natural and refined’ for ‘elegance and exaltation’, ignoring ‘the Ethiopian book’s sources perfectly worked by Páez and de Almeida and disregarding what these authors said about the practices and customs of the Ethiopians’. The title of the book is, in a way, deceptive, since it focuses primarily on events relating to the Jesuit presence in Ethiopia, rather than on the general history of the country. In providing a history of the Ethiopian emperors, Tellez amends the account of Diego Couto, ‘who compiled a long catalogue of the kings of Ethiopia with less than accurate information’. Regarding geography, he discusses at length: the reasons for the name given to the Red Sea (without citing D. João de Castro, who also discussed this subject); the location of the source of the Nile and the explanation for the fullness of the seas during the summer; and the existence of the island of Meroë, which, according to Ptolemaic tradition, is situated in a riverbed. Tellez’ work also deals with what currently could be termed human geography or social anthropology: Ethiopian customs such as eating habits, marriage and burial rites, and other types of religious ceremonies. The information Tellez provides about Islam is not organised systematically, reflecting the minor role that the religion played for Jesuits in their view of Ethiopia. He gives fuller consideration to the relationship between Ethiopian Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, assuming the inherent justice of the cause of those representing the pope in Rome. However, the text includes varied and rich descriptions of Muslim towns in the Horn of Africa, as well as descriptions of the relations developed between the Portuguese and the Ottoman Turks along the road followed by Jesuit missionaries and other Portuguese on their way from Goa to the coasts of the Red Sea. Tellez recounts the characteristics of the Muslim inhabitants of the Horn of Africa, highlighting the key historical events in the relationships that were established over the years with the Christian empire in Ethiopia. He refers to the ‘moros’ (Moors) as one of the ‘castes of people’ interspersed with the Christians who inhabit the Ethiopian empire. He adds that they constitute the third element in Ethiopia; some live off the land



balthazar tellez

595

and others are merchants: ‘Since no Christians are allowed to enter the ports, it is they [the Muslims] who mainly deal in bulk merchandise, and it is also they who take gold overseas and bring back silk and clothes; the Abyssinians held the port of Massawa at some point, but for many years now the Turks have been its masters.’ Tellez also highlights the complex interaction between the Christian and Muslim populations stemming from relationships within the local aristocracy. His descriptions of several Ethiopian emperors marrying the daughters of Muslim kings or lords indicate the privileged position enjoyed by Christians. In these cases, the women were usually baptised. Thus, the Emperor Yaʿəqob, who wished to marry the daughter of the king of the Muslim principality of Hadea (also Hadiyya), although he was killed before the marriage took place. Tellez provides a relatively detailed description of the Muslim invasion of Ethiopia in 1528, a dramatic episode that resulted in the restoration of Christian sovereignty from 1543, partly through the intervention of a substantial contingent of Portuguese soldiers. A great range of sources recount these events: Tellez’ work is based essentially on the accounts by Pedro Páez in his first book on Ethiopian history, written during the second decade of the 17th century. Tellez offers a detailed account of the battles waged between Portuguese and Muslims. Thus, he explains how in 1528 ‘the Moors of Adel [also ʿAdal] . . . were masters of most of the empire, vanquishing and making captives of its captains and soldiers, who were the strongest defenders and most secure fortresses of this empire, and being lords of the campaign, they destroyed everything before them, plundered churches with many treasures such as velvet brocade ornaments, many chalices and patens, not made of gold but of silver, for they were many and great in weight; moreover everything that fell into the hands of the Moors felt the Mohammedan iron and the insolence of a barbarian victor.’ Furthermore, Tellez adds, ‘Among those who in this calamitous time were made captives, was the son of the emperor himself, Minas by name (who later succeeded his older brother Claudius [Gälawdewos] as Emperor of Ethiopia) and other powerful Abyssinians who joined the said [Aḥmad] Grañ; and worse, they later became Moors, but (as Father Francisco Álvares well says in his story) they easily switch religion, since if they do not do well with Muḥammad, they become Christians once more and are baptised again, convincing themselves that they are as Christian and pure as eight-day-old babies; nor is it injurious to them to

596

balthazar tellez

have abandoned the faith, in the same manner they do not take offense to be Moor by caste. These Abyssinians are very easily persuaded that they can join together the light of the Gospel with the darkness of the Qur’an, grace with sin, and Christ with Belial.’ Throughout the account, Tellez’ objective is to praise the courage and tenacity of the Society of Jesus, but also the greatness of the Portuguese nation as a representative of Christianity, since ‘all over India they achieved glorious victories fighting against the perfidious nation of the Mohammedan people’. Therefore, within this scheme of MuslimChristian opposition, Emperor Dawit of Ethiopia appears as a most valorous prince as he enters the kingdom of ʿAdal ‘burning many mosques, destroying places, tearing down fortresses and striking like lightning countless towns and houses devoted to their false prophet’. Aḥmad Grañ (Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī), on the other hand, entered Ethiopia with a ‘copious army and with great ostentation and barbarous arrogance’. Typical of most Jesuit narratives, Tellez’ work presents Ethiopia as indebted to the Portuguese nation. God freed the Christian nation through the blood spilled by Christovão da Gama, while Aḥmad Grañ’s slit throat was a blow to the arrogance of the Moors in Adel. Therefore, it may be concluded that the Portuguese intervention in Ethiopia must have culminated with the conversion of the Ethiopian Empire to Catholicism, and, as perceived by Tellez, the defeat of Islam must have also meant the victory of the pope. Furthermore, as is the case with all Jesuit literature, his work stresses the Ethiopians’ pliable and opportunistic approach to religion. Thus, Emperor Gälawdewos favoured Catholicism when confronted with the Muslim threat. Conversely, once he saw Aḥmad Grañ dead, he reverted to his former faith. Tellez emphatically disagrees with those authors who, in his words, ‘with notable temerity tried to tarnish the glorious deeds of the 400 Portu‑ guese who laboured in Ethiopia, liberating the empire and wresting it from the clutches of Moor captivity’. His purpose is to dignify the labour of the Portuguese and the Jesuits. In this scheme of things, Muslims are presented as permanent rivals who obstruct the spread of the Catholic doctrine in the Horn of Africa. He describes the king of Zaylaʿ as the ‘perfidious Moor king who took the life [of fathers Bernardo Pereira and Francisco Machado] for hatred of the Faith’, and refers to Mecca as ‘this city, wherein lies the cursed body of the false prophet Muḥammad’. Unlike his treatment of Ethiopian Christianity, Tellez’ work exhibits no organised treatment of Muslim doctrine or ethnography of the region.



balthazar tellez

597

Numerous references can be found in the História geral de Etiópia a Alta to the Muslims who controlled the coasts of the Red Sea, and whom the missionaries had to confront in order to enter Ethiopia. On several occasions, Tellez reports the difficulties experienced by early Jesuit missionaries in the second half of the 16th century in communicating with their superiors in Rome and India. He explains that this was due to the presence of the Turks along the coast of Təgray shutting off Ethiopia from outside contact. The ‘Moors’ who assist missionaries are destined to become traitors, acting perversely or only for profit. From the information provided by Tellez, it can be concluded that Muslims are represented during this period as antagonistic to Ethiopian Christianity, the Portuguese nation and the Catholic faith. An important part of the third book of the História geral de Etiópia a Alta deals with the journey undertaken at the end of the 16th century by Pedro Páez and Antonio Monserrate in their attempt to reach the Ethiopian coast. Tellez’ account contains rich detail about MuslimChristian relations on the Island of Diu, as well as on the coasts of the Red Sea. The text provides an extensive account of how the Jesuit fathers were captured in early 1590 by Arabs from Dhofar (Ẓafār) and how they were taken to al-Balīd. From there, they were brought before the sultan of Kathīrī, ʿUmar ibn Badr Bī Ṭuwayriq, then taken by boat to the coast of Ḥaḍramawt, docking near al-Shiḥr, and from there taken on foot to Tarīm. The Jesuits remained in captivity for more than four and a half years in Ṣanʿāʾ, (which, according to Tellez, had at the time 2,000 inhabitants, a quarter of whom were Jews) and an additional year in Moscha (Mokha). In his account of the captivity of the Jesuit fathers, Tellez provides ethnographic information about Muslim life in the Arabian Peninsula. He describes customs and practices typical of everyday life in the Sultanate of Kathīrī, dress and hair styles and how women, on leaving the house each day, ‘cover themselves with white robes and their face with black veils, like nuns’. According to Tellez, they exhibit Jewish customs, such as women crying over their dead, beating their chests and throwing their arms around each other’s necks. Tellez’ hostility toward Muslims is evident in his descriptions of extreme conflicts with representatives of the Roman Church, where he refers to them as ‘murderous dogs’, ‘[possessors of a] diabolical blindness’, and ‘Turkish enemies of Christ’. Despite such rancour, there are occasional glimpses in his work of appreciation and recognition of the

598

balthazar tellez

honest conduct, virtues and hospitable attitude shown toward the Portuguese and Jesuits by Turks who guaranteed the missionaries’ safe passage on their way to Ethiopia. He praises the character of the pasha of the Kingdom of Yemen, who employed Páez and Monserrate in his orchards while he held them captive. This great Turk, explains Tellez, ‘is a rare example of an infidel, similar to the one much celebrated by the Sicilian king Agathocles, who, having gold tableware, ate from earthen dishes, and being asked the reason said he did it in memory of his father who had been a potter. The examples of a Moor and Gentile may cause much confusion in many Christians, who, being humble by birth, may want to ennoble themselves by vanity’. While in captivity, the Jesuits received visits from and debated with ‘very inquisitive’ Muslims who questioned the fathers about matters of faith, offering them in exchange plentiful delicacies. Tellez notes the kind treatment and freedom of worship enjoyed by the Jesuit fathers and other Portuguese during this period – the Turks provided them with facilities to perform sacred ceremonies and candles for religious services, including the Easter procession. According to Tellez, the ransom to release the fathers was paid finally by a Banian merchant. Tellez understood the value of maintaining good relationships with Muslim merchants in order to ease the entry of the missionaries into the port of Massawa. Mutual favours would be negotiated, whereby the Portuguese allowed passage to the port of Diu in exchange for the passage of Society of Jesus missionaries on ships bound for important ports. Thus, explains Tellez, António Fernandes and Antonio de Angelis departed from Sawākin on board Turkish fleets that took them safely to their destination: ‘Those same Turks (who the Devil took for instruments to stop us on our journey) were the ministers who allowed it, being themselves the guardian soldiers who protected our journey’. In 1620, the Catholic patriarch-elect of Ethiopia negotiated with an unidentified wealthy Turk in Diu for safe passage for the new missionaries to Sawākin and Massawa. In Sawākin, Diogo de Matos and Bruno Bruni were hosted lavishly by the pasha with banquets. This is one of the occasions where Tellez expresses appreciation for a Turk, noting that ‘even as he professed it outwardly, he was a friend of the Portuguese, and even seemed to try to come to live among them in India, presuming that he wanted to become a Christian, but died before achieving it’. This would not be the only time that the recommendations and gifts of the Sawākin pasha served to facilitate entry and relations with the Turkish customs officials at Massawa.



balthazar tellez

599

Relations of this kind made it possible to free from captivity missionaries who travelled to or from Ethiopia, such as the Patriarch Afonso Mendes when he was expelled from Ethiopia in 1632 and had to return to Goa. The banishment of the Jesuits from Ethiopia as decreed by Emperor Fasilädäs forced a large Catholic contingent to cross territories under Turkish rule, such as Massawa, Dahlak, ʿAdal and Sawākin, where the Jesuit missionaries once again suffered imprisonment. Using a letter from Manuel de Almeida as a source, Tellez tells of the forced conversion of some of the Ethiopian patriarch’s entourage, as well as of serious threats and trials suffered by the Jesuit fathers. As in the other cases mentioned above, the ransom was again paid by Banian traders who were later rewarded at Diu, where the Portuguese ruled. In this context, Tellez’ interpretation of the strengthening of diplomatic and commercial relations between the Ethiopian Emperor Fasilädäs and the peninsular Arabs is noteworthy. This fact, well documented in other sources, has a religious significance for Jesuits in general. According to Tellez, the Arabian ambassador had arrived in Ethiopia as a result of the hatred borne by the emperor for the Catholic faith. Invoking the wellknown principle ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’, Fasilädäs strengthened ties with the Muslims, ‘saying he was persecuted not only by the Portuguese from the East, but also by Italians from the West’. Significance Balthazar Tellez discusses Muslims only tangentially in his work, and always as playing a secondary role to the drama unfolding between Catholic and Orthodox Ethiopians. On many occasions Muslims are the ‘punishment’ doled out by God to rectify Ethiopia’s heresy; conversely, they are represented as a common enemy, for example, in the historical account of events in the first half of the 16th century, when the Portuguese aided Ethiopia against the armies of Aḥmad Grañ (Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī). Tellez is no expert, nor is he interested in arguing about the ins and outs of ‘Mohammedan’ faith. His descriptions of Islam are concerned mainly with issues relating to political activity and cultural characteristics such as dress, architecture, and aspects of the Muslims’ way of life. Predominant above all is the role played by the Turks in controlling the crossing points from the East to Ethiopia, which many missionaries and other Christians had to pass through or in some cases remained in for many years. Here, Tellez’ narrative assigns a hostile role to the Turkish and Arab authorities of the Red Sea coast. However, when delving into

600

balthazar tellez

the personal interactions between certain missionaries and the Turkish pashas, he sometimes emphasises the humaneness and friendliness of the way the former were treated by the latter, allowing for a more positive image of the complex relationship between the two parties. Tellez’ text is an indispensable piece in the complex puzzle of relationships on the Red Sea coast – and within Ethiopia – between Catholics, Orthodox Ethiopians and Muslims. Publications Balthazar Tellez, História Geral de Etiópia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os Padres da Companhia de Iesus. Composta na mesma Ethiopia pelo Padre Manoel d’Almeyda, natural de Vizeu, Provincial e Visitador, que foy na India. Abraviada com Nova Releyçam, e Methodo, pello Padre Balthazar Tellez, Natural de Lisboa, Provincial da Provincia Lusitana: Ambos da mesma Companhia, Coimbra, 1660 J. Stevens (trans.), The travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia. The whole collected and historically digested by Father Balthazar Tellez, London, 1710 (English trans.); RES-3502-V (digitalised version available through Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) Balthazar Teles, História geral de Etiópia-a-alta, ed. A de Magalhães Basto, Porto, 1936 Balthazar Teles, História da Etiópia, ed. L. de Albuquerque, Lisbon, 1989 Studies I. Carneiro de Sousa, A crónica como missão. A ‘História da Etiopia-aAltaou ou Preste João’ do Padre Baltasar Teles (1660), Porto, 1998 K. Krause, Os Portugueses na Abissinia. Subsidio para a historia da descoberta da Africa, Lisbon, 1915, pp. 36-7 Leonardo Cohen

Antônio Vieira Date of Birth 6 February 1608 Place of Birth Lisbon Date of Death 17 June 1697 Place of Death Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

Biography

Antônio Vieira was born in Lisbon on 6 February 1608. His family moved to Brazil in 1614, and settled in Salvador, Bahia, where Vieira studied at Jesuit schools. He showed a great interest in the life of the Brazilian natives and their villages. He started working as a preacher, becoming a priest, and then a theology teacher in 1634. When Vieira travelled to Portugal in 1641, he was already known as the greatest homilist in Brazil. He went as part of a special commission to King João IV to demonstrate Brazilian and Jesuit support for him at the outbreak of the Portuguese Restoration War, which marked the end of the Iberian Union (1580-1640). Vieira became a great friend of the king and came to be recognised throughout the kingdom as one of the greatest preachers of the century. King João IV invited him to act as his state advisor and designated him as ambassador to France and the United Provinces, involving Vieira in important diplomatic missions. Vieira was responsible for mediating a deal with the Dutch, who had invaded the colony of Brazil in 1630. During the War of Expulsion of the Dutch from Pernambuco, which ended in 1654, Vieira suggested to the king that, to maintain peace, he should offer the Dutch the region of Pernambuco, which they had invaded and where John Maurice of Nassau spent nearly two decades exploring sugar cane agriculture. These proposals led some of his enemies in Brazil and Portugal to consider him a traitor . In 1646, Vieira denounced the racist character of the persecution of the Cristãos-novos (new Christians) and the Portuguese obsession with trying to prove that as they were infected by Jewish blood they were bad Christians. He accused the Inquisition of persecuting innocent Portuguese for economic reasons, and openly deplored the silence of his fellow clerics. For this he was subjected to constant criticism, particularly for his insistent defence of the Jews, so much so that

602

antônio vieira

the Jesuits themselves and the inquisitors began a law case against him. Contrary to the king’s wishes, Vieira left Lisbon and returned to Brazil in 1652. In Brazil, Vieira became concerned about the conversion and enslavement of the indigenous people and he fought to protect them for the remainder of his life. In order to gain support for this cause, he returned to Lisbon in 1654, departing for Maranhão back in Brazil, again against the king’s wishes. Conflicts between the Jesuits and the colonists over the enslavement of the Indians intensified, and in 1661 all priests were expelled. Vieira was critical of the conditions in which prisoners of the Inquisition were held, as recorded in Notícias recônditas do modo de proceder da Inquisição com os seus presos. (There are some doubts about his authorship of this work: Hernani Cidade, the editor of Obras escolhidas [1951], concludes that Lupina Freire provided the first impressions and Vieira rewrote it, although Anita Novinsky [‘Padre Vieira’] concludes that Vieira is certainly the author.) Vieira’s many battles against the Holy Office led to the Inquisition condemning him to live as a recluse, forbidden to preach for two years (1665-7). According to the inquisitors, his works had about them a ‘smell of Judaism’. He went to Rome, where he personally denounced to the pope the crimes committed in his country ‘in the name of God’: his letter to Pope Innocent XI is an open accusation against his own church. These accusations infuriated the inquisitors, and in 1675 Vieira only escaped imprisonment and death because he was under the pope’s protection. In 1681, Vieira left Portugal for good, returning to Brazil, where he lived in Bahia until his death on 17 June 1697. In the years 1681-94, he devoted his efforts to structuring his more than 200 sermons (Sermões) into a book, as he was aware that many sermons were in circulation that purported to be by him. In many of his writings, Vieira discusses the complex problems of forced conversion, the economic harm done by the confiscations, and the innocent victims of the Inquisition. Until his final days, ill and almost blind, he continued to preach. Vieira’s works reflect a futurist view of the messianic-millenarist ideal that he calls the ‘fifth empire’, and which he develops throughout his works História do futuro, Clavis Prophetarum and Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício. Some of his ideas were based on those of Gonçalo Anes Bandarra, a 16th-century mystic who prophesied that Portugal would again rise to greatness. In Clavis Prophetarum, considered his



antônio vieira

603

masterpiece, Vieira proposes that ‘the Church should reconsider the inquisitorial prohibitions and give the converted Jews absolute freedom’. This is extant in many parts, and has never been published as a complete work; it appears to make no direct reference to Muslims. In Defesa perante, Vieira builds a complex case in which Maomé (Muḥammad) is the Anti-Christ. His ideas often place Portugal at the pinnacle of God’s plans, and he develops the ideas of Sebastianism, anticipating the return of the missing King Sebastian, who had been killed in the battle of Al-Kasr el-Kebir in 1578. Vieira wrote more than 750 letters, which he organised before his death and delivered to Antônio Maria Bonucci, an Italian Jesuit working in a mission in Bahia, who in turn sent them on to Luís de Meneses, a friend of Vieira. The Conde de Ericeira added more letters and published them in two volumes in 1735, with a third volume appearing in 1746. Other volumes, Vozes saudosas and Voz sagrada were printed in 1736 and 1748 respectively. Vieira’s utopian dreams had a practical aim: to unify all nations into one unique era of harmony, with a single faith. In his letter to André Fernandes, entitled Esperanças de Portugal, can be seen the influence of Jewish Messianism: the earth will be a place of peace, and there will be only one religion. This idea, expressed in História do futuro (History of the future) as ‘the Kingdom of the Right will be on this earth’, directly conflicted with the Church’s message that the ‘fifth kingdom’ will be in heaven, and will commence at the end of days. Vieira predicted the end of the world on several occasions beginning from 1666, recalculating the year each time the prediction remained unfulfilled. Islam and Muslims feature in a number of Vieira’s works, and though they do not by any means take central place they are often integral to his arguments.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Antônio Vieira, História do futuro. Livro anteprimeiro. Prologomero a toda história do futuro em que se declara o fim e se provam os mandamentos dela. Matéria, verdade e utilidades de história do futuro, Lisbon: Oficina de Domingos Rodrigues, 1655 Antônio Vieira, ‘Esperanças de Portugal, Quinto Império do mundo’, in J.M.C. Seabra and T.Q. Antunes (eds), Obras inéditas do Padre Antonio Vieira, Lisbon, 1856, vol. 1, pp. 83-131

604

antônio vieira

Antônio Vieira, Obras escolhidas, ed. A. Sérgio and H. Cidade, Lisbon, 1951 Antônio Vieira, Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício, Bahia, 1957 J. Lucio de Azevedo (ed.), Cartas do Padre Antônio Vieira, Lisbon, 1971 Secondary M.A.T. Valdez, Historical interpretations of the ‘Fifth Empire’. The dynamics of periodization from Daniel to António Vieira, S.J., Leiden, 2011 A. Novinsky, ‘A Catholic priest and his fight for the justice of the Jews. Father Antônio Vieira’, in R. Merdler and G.C. Bacon (eds), Iggud. Selected essays in Jewish studies, vol. 2: History of the Jewish people and contemporary Jewish society, Jerusalem, 2009, 33-9 A. Pécora, Teatro do sacramento, a unidade teológico-retórico-polí tica dos sermões de Antônio Vieira, São Paulo, 20082 T. Cohen (ed.), António Vieira and the Luso-Brazilian Baroque, special issue of Luso-Brazilian Review 40/1 (2003) J.A. Hansen (ed.), Cartas do Brasil. 1626-1697, Estado do Brasil e Estado do Maranhão e Grã Pará, São Paulo, 2003 J.J. van den Besselaar (ed.), Antônio Vieira, profecia e polêmica, Rio de Janeiro, 2002 A. Novinsky, ‘O Judaísmo dissimulado do padre Antônio Vieira’, Sigila, Revue Transdisciplinaire Franco-Portugaise sur le Secret 8 (2001) 93-8 J. Vaz de Carvalho, art. ‘Vieira, Antônio. Misionero, orador, escritor’, in C. O’Neill and J.M. Dominguez (eds), Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús, biográfico-temático, Madrid, 2001, vol. 4, cols 3948a-51a A. Novinsky, ‘Sebastianismo, Vieira e o Messianismo Judaico’, in C.A. Iannone, M.V. Zamboni Gobbi and R. Soares Junqueira (eds), Sobre as naus da iniciação. Estudos portugueses de literatura e história, São Paulo, 1998, 65-70 T. Cohen, The fire of tongues, Stanford CA, 1998 A.J. Saraiva, História e Utopia. Estudos sobre Vieira, Lisbon, 1992 J.L. de Azevedo, História de Antônio Vieira, Lisbon, 19922 A. Novinsky, ‘Padre Vieira, a Inquisição e os Judeus’, Novos Estudos 29 (1991) 172-81 J.A. Seabra, O heterodoxo pessoano, São Paulo, 1988 A. Sérgio, ‘Interpretação não romântica do Sebastianismo’, in A. Sérgio et al., Obras completas ensaios, Lisbon, 1971, vol. 1, pp. 235-51 M.C. Gotaas, Bousset and Vieira. A study in national, epochal and individual style, New York, 1969 M. Bataillon, ‘Le Brésil dans une vision d’Isaïe selon le P. António Vieira’, Revista Interamericana de Bibliografía. Review of Interamerican Bibliography 12 (1962) 7-14 I. Lins, Aspectos do Padre Vieira, Rio de Janeiro, 1956



antônio vieira

605

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Esperanças de Portugal, quinto Império do mundo, ‘Hopes for Portugal, the Fifth Empire of the world’ Date 1656 Original Language Portuguese Description The letter Esperanças de Portugal, Quinto Império do mundo. Primeira e segunda vida del-Rei D. João o quarto escritas por Gonçaleanes Bandarra was written while Vieira was travelling up the Amazon to join his fellow Jesuit André Fernandes (1607-60). He wrote it after he learnt about the death of King João IV in 1656, in order to offer a message of encouragement to the king’s widow. It expresses an eschatological hope that the deceased king would return, as he still had a further purpose to fulfil as set out in the prophecies of the mystic Bandarra. It covers 60 pages in the 2002 van den Basselar edition. In this letter, Vieira develops his concepts of messianism, including an attempt to find a rationale for the new empire through the ‘reason of the name of Mahomet’. This involves showing how the name has the value 1665, which is close to 1666, the proposed year for the inauguration of the Fifth Empire (Esperanças de Portugal, ed. van den Basselaar, p. 103). Significance The letter reached Fernandes in late 1659, and he was required to hand it to the Inquisition, which eventually led to Vieira being summoned to Rome. In content, Esperanças de Portugal is similar to the second part of História do futuro, and there is debate as to which of them is the source of the other (Valdez, Historical interpretations, pp. 243-6). Using Muḥammad’s name to provide a date for the beginning of the Fifth Empire and the rise of Portugal reflects the prevailing attitudes of the period, though expressed in a personal and very singular manner. Publications Antônio Vieira, ‘Esperanças de Portugal, Quinto Império do mundo’, in J.M.C. Seabra and T.Q. Antunes (eds), Obras inéditas do Padre Antonio Veira, Lisbon, 1856, vol. 1, pp. 83-131 Antônio Vieira, ‘Esperanças de Portugal quinto império do mundo. Primeira e segunda vida del-Rei D. João o quarto escritas por Gonçaleanes Bandarra’, ed. J.J. van den Besselaar, Antônio Vieira, profecia e polêmica, Rio de Janeiro, 2002, 49-108

606

antônio vieira

Studies Valdez, Historical interpretations, pp. 229-43 R. Ricard, ‘Prophecy and Messianism in the works of Antonio Vieira’, The Americas 17 (1961) 357-68

História do futuro, ‘History of the future’ Date 1655-66 Original Language Portuguese Description Vieira’s História do futuro. Livro anteprimeiro. Prologomero a toda História do futuro em que se declara o fim e se provam os mandamentos dela. Matéria, verdade e utilidades de História do futuro was composed in two parts, although it was originally conceived as comprising seven. The first was published in 1655, while the second, which Vieira started in 1649, was only completed in 1666. The two parts were not published together until 1718, in a 220-page edition. The ideas presented in the second part are similar to those of Vieira’s letter to André Fernandes, Esperanças de Portugal, Quinto Império do mundo (1659), and there is uncertainty as to which of these works is the earlier (e.g., see Valdez, Historical interpretations, pp. 243-6). Vieira was interested in the idea of the identity of the ‘fifth empire’, which appears in a prophecy in the Book of Daniel. He interprets it as referring to the restoration of the Kingdom of Christ on earth, an empire that would last a thousand years until the arrival of the Antichrist. It would be universal, uniting all the continents, including all races and cultures under Catholic Christianity and ruled by the Portuguese king, who would also be the Vicar of Christ (Valdez, Historical interpretations, p. 39). In constructing his historical narrative, Vieira drew on the examples of various other empires, as well as on the idea of the Apocalypse. Some of the ideas in the work are based on the 16th-century mystic, Gonçalo Anes Bandarra, the shoemaker of Trancoso. In Trovas do Bandarra, Bandarra predicts the future through the scriptures, blending together religious, social and political aspirations. For him, society was confused, divided and corrupted by money, luxury and a lack of respect for the authorities. He aspired towards a new society, unified and peaceful, a union forged by a king with divine authority. Portugal was to undertake this mission.



antônio vieira

607

In 1666, there was a new messianic wave. While the Jews were waiting for their Messiah and the Christians were anticipating the return of King Sebastian, for Vieira it would be the year marking the destruction of the Ottoman Empire (as in Esperanças de Portugal), and the beginning of a new Christian empire. For all three groups, their hopes would be realised in that year. Significance História do futuro, with its prophecies concerning the importance of Portugal, has continued to be influential in Lusophone areas, with many editions being published during the 20th century. The role attributed to Islam, through the Ottomans, as a contributing factor in bringing about the ‘fifth empire’ is a reflection of the prevailing attitudes of the period. More recently, there has been wider interest in the work for its interpretation of scripture. Publications Antônio Vieira, História do futuro. Livro anteprimeiro. Prologomero a toda História do futuro em que se declara o fim e se provam os mandamentos dela. Matéria, verdade e utilidades de História do futuro, Lisbon: Oficina de Domingos Rodrigues, 1655 Antônio Vieira, Historia do futuro. Livro antiprimeyro prologomeno a toda a historia do futuro, em que se declara o fim, e se provão os fundamentos della . . ., Lisbon, 1718 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro. Livro anteprimeiro. Prologomero a toda História do futuro em que se declara o fim e se provam os mandamentos dela. Matéria, verdade e utilidades de História do future, Lisbon, 1755 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro. Livro anteprimeiro prologomero a toda História do futuro em que se declara o fim e se provam os mandamentos dela. Matéria, verdade e utilidades de História do futuro, Bahia, 1838 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro. Livro anteprimeiro prologomero a toda História do futuro em que se declara o fim e se provam os mandamentos dela. Matéria, verdade e utilidades de História do futuro, Lisbon, 1855 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, ed. J.L. de Azevedo, Coimbra, 1918 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro. Livro ante-primeiro. Prolegomeno a toda a História do futuro, em que se declara o fim e se provam os fundamentos della. Materia, verdade e utilidades da História do futuro, São Paulo, 1937

608

antônio vieira

Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, ed. A. Sérgio, Lisbon, 1953 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, Rio de Janeiro, 1970 Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, ed. J. van den Besselaar, Münster, 1976 (repr. Lisbon, 1983) Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, ed. M.L. Carvalhão Buescu, Lisbon, 1982, 19922 Antônio Vieira, Historia del futuro, ed. and trans. L.T. Folch and E. Nogueras, Madrid, 1987 (Spanish trans.) Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, Belem, 1998 Antônio Vieira, Per la storia del future, ed. and trans. D. Bigalli, Aosta, 2002 (Italian trans.) Antônio Vieira, História do futuro, ed. J.C. Brandi Aleixo, Brasilia, 2005 Antônio Vieira, The sermon of Saint Anthony to the fish and other texts, Dartmouth MA, 2009 (partial English trans.) Studies M.A.T. Valdez, ‘Rethinking the Fifth Empire. António Vieira and the Clavis Prophetarum’, e-Journal of Portuguese History 10 (2012) 58-75 Valdez, Historical interpretations, pp. 243-63 M.V. Jordán, ‘The Empire of the future and the Chosen People. Father António Vieira and the prophetic tradition in the Hispanic world’, Luso-Brazilian Review 40 (2003) 45-57

Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício, ‘Defence before the tribunal of the Holy Office’ Date 1665-7 Original Language Portuguese Description Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Oficio is Antônio Vieira’s response to accusations made against him by the Inquisition. It was first published in 1957, in two volumes of 737 and 742 pages. During the period of his imprisonment by the Inquisition, Vieira tried to elucidate his ideas about the coming of a new empire, based on the prophecy in the Book of Daniel. He saw that this new empire would be the Kingdom of Portugal, coming after the Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. In volume 2, he identifies four groups of unbelievers: the heretics who err in their faith, the Jews who deny Christ, the Gentiles



antônio vieira

609

who do not know Christ and the true God, and the Muslims who are blasphemers. Similarly, he identifies the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6:1-8) as the Jews (on the white horse), the heretics (on the red horse), the ‘gentiles’ of Africa (on the black horse) and the Moors of Africa (on the pale horse) (ed. Cidade, pp. 195, 197). In his interpretation of Revelation 3:18, Vieira calculates 666, the number of the ‘beast’, as a reference to the name ‘Maomé’ (Muḥammad). This involves using Latin rather than Hebrew letters, writing the name in the genitive and omitting the ‘h’, ending up with ‘Maometis’. The numerical values of letters according to the Greek alphabet add up to 666 (pp. 260-1). From this conclusion that the ‘beast’ refers to Muḥammad and his descendants, Vieira draws a second conclusion, that the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was imminent, due to occur in 1666. When 1666 passed, he recalculated and rescheduled this destruction for 1670. In this fashion, he was able to identify the Ottomans as the anti-Christ, and their continual wars against the Habsburgs as a sign of the imminence of the end time (Valdez, Historical interpretations, pp. 300-2). Significance Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Oficio is important for the history of the apocalyptic interpretation of Christian scripture, particularly the age-old use of Daniel and Revelation to date the downfall of Islam. In predicting the destruction of the Ottomans as the dawn of a new age, including the use of numerology, Vieira repeats methods used by Christians of earlier times, who like him had foreseen the end of previous Islamic dynasties. Publications Antônio Vieira, Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofí cio, ed. H. Cidade, Bahia, Brazil, 1957 A. Muhana, Os autos do processo de Vieira na Inquisição, San Paulo, 1995 (includes texts not in Cidade) Antônio Vieira, Obra completa Padre António Vieira, Tomo 3, vol. 2. Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício, ed. P.A.E. Borges et al., Lisbon, 2014 Studies Valdez, Historical interpretations, pp. 46, 228, 232, 285, 302-3 R. Cantel, Prophétisme et messianisme dans l’oeuvre de Antonio Vieira, Paris, 1960, p. 114

610

antônio vieira

P.A.E. Borges, A plenificação da história em Padre António Vieira. Estudos sobre a ideia de quinto império na Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício, Lisbon, 1995 Eneida Ribeiro

Louis Moreau de Chambonneau Date of Birth Before the mid 1650s Place of Birth Unknown; France Date of Death 1693 or later Place of Death Unknown; probably Senegal, possibly in Saint-Louis

Biography

Louis Moreau de Chambonneau was a French agent of the Senegal Company who lived and worked in Senegal during the last three decades of the 17th century. He was first in Senegal between 1674 and 1677, when he worked as an inspector for the Senegal Company (renamed the Guinea Company in 1685). He later returned to Senegal as the company’s director-general and as governor of the French colony of Saint-Louis, serving from 1684 to 1689 and from 1690 to 1693. Chambonneau is known to have travelled extensively during his time in Senegal, visiting kingdoms in the hinterland such as Waalo, Galam and Jollof, and exploring the River Senegal. During these journeys, he made extensive notes of his observations. Many of Chambonneau’s notes as well as his reports and letters have been preserved and can be found in the archives of the Companie de Guinée, located in the Archives de France in Paris. Two texts by Chambonneau from the 1670s that are of particular interest to the field of Muslim Christian relations have been edited by Carson Ritchie and published: De l’origine des nègres du Sénégal coste d’affrique, de leur pays, relligion, coutumes et moeurs and L’histoire du Toubenan, ou changement de souverains et réforme de relligion desdits nègres, depuis 1673 son origine, jusques en la présente année. During his years as director-general and governor in Saint-Louis, Chambonneau developed plans to extend French influence among the Senegalese kingdoms and convert the area into a colony. Hence, he is sometimes called a ‘precursor’ of French colonialism in West Africa. Apart from his work for the Senegal and Guinea Company, no details about Chambonneau’s personal life are known. He must have been at least in his twenties when he first visited Senegal, which would imply that he was born before the mid-1650s. The Dominican priest and historian Jean-Baptiste Labat writes that Chambonneau died in Senegal in

612

louis moreau de chambonneau

early 1693 (Labat, Nouvelle relations, p. 30). Prosper Cultru, however, disputes this, referring to a company report that states that Chambonneau left France in September 1693 for Senegal (Cultru, Les origines, p. 75). The date of Chambonneau’s death is therefore uncertain but may be 1693 or shortly afterwards, possibly in Saint-Louis.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary C.I.A. Ritchie, ‘Deux textes sur le Senegal (1673-1677)’, Bulletin de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noir, série B sciences humaines 30 (1968) 289-353 Secondary Ritchie, ‘Deux textes sur le Senegal’, pp. 289-305 P. Cultru, Les origines de l’Afrique occidentale, Paris, 1910 J.-B. Labat, Nouvelle relations de l’Afrique occidentale, Paris, 1728

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations L’histoire du Toubenan, ‘The history of Toubenan’ Date 1677 Original Language French Description L’histoire du Toubenan, ou changement de souverains et réforme de relligion desdits nègres, depuis 1673 son origine, jusques en la présente année (‘The history of Toubenan, or the change of rulers and the religious renewal of the said blacks since its origin in 1673 to the present year 1677’), about 15 pages long in print, is part of a manuscript discovered in the mid-20th century in the municipal library of Dieppe, France. The other text in the manuscript is entitled De l’origine des nègres du Sénégal coste d’affrique, de leur pays, relligion, coutumes et moeurs (around 35 pages in print). They appear to form the draft for a 17th-century report for the governors of the Senegal Company in Paris. The manuscript has many erasures, remarks in the margin and blank spaces where text (e.g. the Arabic text of a prayer) was still to be inserted, making clear that this version is a draft. Whether it was eventually used as the basis of official reports is uncertain; no such official reports are known. How the text eventually ended up in Dieppe is also uncertain; Ritchie points out that traders from the town were active in West Africa, thus implying that they



louis moreau de chambonneau

613

may have carried the manuscript to Dieppe, possibly after the death of Chambonneau (Ritchie, ‘Deux textes’, pp. 290-1). The manuscript is anonymous, but a remark in De l’origine des nègres identifies Louis Moreau de Chambonneau as its author; Hieremkodé, king of Waalo calls the writer of the text ‘domé Sambonné’, a Wolof expression which the author translates as ‘his child Chambonneau’ (Ritchie, ‘Deux textes’, p. 325). From the dates mentioned in the text, De l’origine des nègres was written between January 1675 and June 1676. L’histoire du Toubenan refers to events starting in 1673; the last observations were written in 1677. De l’origine des nègres recounts Chambonneau’s journey from France to Senegal and gives an ethnographic, geographical and historical account of the region, describing the people, their food, government, commerce, crafts, religion and rites of passage, flora and fauna etc. In his account, Chambonneau links the ‘blackness’ of Africans to the curse of Ham, rejecting climatological explanations for their skin colour and stating that ‘they are thus differentiated from other human beings, serving as a reminder of their eternal curse’ (Ritchie, ‘Two texts’, p. 310). Since a substantial part of French commercial activity on the River Senegal was the trade in slaves, this is worth noting. In De l’origine des nègres, Chambonneau describes the people as being ‘all Mahometans’, who follow ‘the law of that false prophet Mahomet, seducer of so many nations’ (Ritchie, ‘Deux textes’, p. 314) and who, ‘like the Turks’, strictly observe prayer-times, Ramadan and the purity laws regarding food and drink. He writes that they have no mosques or other religious buildings (‘unlike the Turks’), but rather that each village has a small piece of land demarcated by a palisade where the men gather for prayers, while the women pray at home. Chambonneau’s descriptions of Muslim practices and festivals are detailed, signalling personal observation. He distinguishes between Muslim practices and the ‘customs of the country’ such as circumcision, funeral rites and the use of amulets. De l’origine des nègres is somewhat ambiguous in its evaluation of Islam and Muslims. Chambonneau consistently calls Muḥammad ‘a false prophet’ and seems to have derived pleasure from testing the tenacity of Muslim piety: he flings pork in the bowl of food for his African servants merely to see whether they will continue eating (which they do not), and liberally dispenses alcohol to the Muslim king of Waalo. Yet despite his obvious contempt for Muslim practices, he simultaneously expresses a certain grudging admiration for Muslims, writing that their piety causes

614

louis moreau de chambonneau

the Christians present to be ashamed and aware that they themselves seem to live without much belief in God (Ritchie, ‘Deux textes’, p. 316). L’histoire du Toubenan is Chambonneau’s eye-witness account of the rise and fall of the Muslim Toubenan movement (tub meaning ‘religious conversion’ in Wolof; cf. Arabic ṭāba, yaṭūbu) in the kingdoms of Futa, Waalo, Jolof and Cayor. The Toubenan movement was led by Nāsir al-Dīn, a marabout from the area of present-day Mauretania, whom Chambonneau describes as a ‘man of not yet thirty, naked and with a shaven head’ who had ‘abandoned the world to dedicate himself to God’ (Ritchie, ‘Deux textes’, p. 339). According to Chambonneau, Nāsir al-Dīn was called almami, amīr al-muʾminīn and bourguly (Wolof: the great master of prayer). Chambonneau’s account begins in 1673, when Nāsir al-Dīn, who had gathered a large following among ‘the Moors’, invaded Futa Toro. Nāsir al-Dīn had sent emissaries to the king of Futa seven times, calling upon him to reform his life and embrace a stricter observance of Islam, but each time his emissaries were dismissed and even ridiculed. Thereupon, Nāsir al-Dīn crossed the border of Futa with a large number of his followers. He travelled from village to village, preaching and emphasising that the king was abusing and exploiting his subjects by pillaging, killing and enslaving people. According to Chambonneau, the oppressive and exploitative rule of the Senegalese elite and Nāsir al-Dīn’s promise of religious as well as socio-economic reform accounted for the positive reception he received in the villages and explained why he was able to oust the king of Futa without a confrontation. Similar campaigns against the kings of Jolof, Cayor and Waalo went less smoothly and resulted in protracted battles. Eventually, however, all four kingdoms were conquered and became provinces of Nāsir al-Dīn’s empire. In 1674, Nāsir al-Dīn also sent emissaries to Saint-Louis to negotiate new forms of trade on the River Senegal to replace the slave trade, which the Toubenan movement rejected. However, rather than opening the negotiations, the director-general of the Senegal Company, de Munchin, on hearing of the death of Nāsir al-Dīn in May 1674 and interpreting the Toubenan activities as an attempt to control the trade on the River Senegal (Barry, Kingdom of Waalo, pp. 83-5), made an attempt to break the power of the Toubenan movement. This caused the French to be drawn into the marabout wars, resulting in casualties, loss of property and a disruption of trade, a situation from which they were only able to extricate themselves with some difficulty and military force.



louis moreau de chambonneau

615

Chambonneau describes how support for the Toubenan movement gradually declined after the death of Nāsir al-Dīn in 1674, being weakend by a war of succession within the movement. Waalo benefited from this internal confusion by regaining its independence during this period. The influence of the Toubenan movement also faded among the common people when they realised that the social improvements promised by Nāsir al-Dīn would never materialise: the rule of his successors proved even more oppressive than that of the traditional kings, and the incessant battles caused a famine so severe that people sold themselves voluntarily into slavery in order to survive. By 1677, according to Chambonneau, the kingdoms of Cayor, Jolof and Futa had also been re-instated and Toubenan power had vanished. It is uncertain why Chambonneau wrote L’histoire. Ritchie hypothesises that he had been sent by the Senegal Company directors as an inspector to check on the governor, and that the report was meant to demonstrate the governor’s inability and ineptitude (Ritchie, ‘Deux textes’, p. 292). Significance L’histoire du Toubenan is unique material in that it provides a detailed eye-witness account of one of the first jihadist movements in West Africa and its strategies for rallying support. The text is the only contemporary source on the Toubenan movement, and it fills a gap in the historical records on Senegal for the period 1664-97, as the archives of the Senegalese Company for that period were destroyed. Chambonneau’s descriptions illustrate the complexity of revivalist movements such as the Toubenan. He documents how religious motives blended with socio-economic and political aspirations, for example in rebellion against corrupt traditional leadership, denunciation of the trans-Atlantic slave-trade and control over the River Senegal, which was prompted by the shift from trans-Saharan to Atlantic trade routes. Similarly, both L’histoire du Toubenan and De l’origine des nègres also demonstrate the manifold constitutive elements of the French attitude towards Islam in 17th-century Senegal. Though French officials saw themselves, and were seen, as Christians, their attitude towards Islam and Muslims was as much shaped by commercial expediency as by religious conviction. And although people like Chambonneau were basically hostile and disdainful in their attitude towards Islam and Muslims, they also grudgingly admired Muslim piety.

616

louis moreau de chambonneau

Finally, De l’origine des nègres makes clear that, in the case of Chambonneau (and possibly other 17th-century Europeans), encounters with and representations of Ottoman beliefs and practices fashioned notions about Islam, with ‘Turkish’ Islam becoming the standard against which West African Islam and Muslims were depicted. Publications MS Dieppe, Bibliothèque Municipale de Dieppe – 66 (after 1677) Ritchie, ‘Deux textes sur le Senegal’ Studies Ritchie, ‘Deux textes sur le Senegal’ B. Barry, The kingdom of Waalo. Senegal before the conquest, New York, 2012 (trans. of Le Royaume du Waalo. Sénégal avant la conquête, Paris, 1985), pp. 75-98 S.A. Diouf, ‘ “God does not allow kings to enslave their people”. Islamic reformists and the transatlantic slave-trade’, in A. Alryyes (ed.), A Muslim American slave. The life of Omar ibn Said, Madison WI, 2011, 162-81 B. Barry, ‘La Sénégambie du XVe-XVIIe siècle’, Revue Française d’Histoire Outre-mer 86 (1981) 37-52 P.D. Curtin, ‘Jihad in West Africa. Early phases and interrelations in Mauretania and Senegal’, Journal of African History 12 (1971) 11-24 H.T. Norris, ‘Znãga Islam during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, BSOAS 32 (1969) 496-526 Martha Frederiks

Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī Shaikh Yūsuf, Shaik Yusuf, Shaykh Yūsuf al-Tāj al-Khalwātī l-Maqasarī, Abadan Tadia Tjoessoef, Syaikh Yusuf al-Makassari, Shaykh Yūsuf Makassar Date of Birth 1626 Place of Birth Goa, Celebes (today Sulawesi) Date of Death 23 May 1699 Place of Death Zandvliet, Cape Colony

Biography

Shaykh Yūsuf was born in 1626 in the town of Gowa on the island of Celebes (Sulawesi), Indonesia (Ligtvoet, Transcriptie, p. 90). According to the Lontara Bilang (chronicles of south Sulawesi), he was born on 26 May 1626 (Sahib, Shaykh Yusuf al-Makassary), though this date is not confirmed elsewhere. In the Lontara Riwaya’na Tuanta Salama ri Gowa, Shaykh Yūsuf ’s father is identified as a brother of the king of Goa, who was apparently the first ruler to declare Islam the state religion, in 1603. As a young man, Shaykh Yūsuf was encouraged by his father to study the Qur’an and basic Muslim teachings. He spent several years in Mecca studying Arabic and religious sciences, and on his return home he settled in Banten in West Java, where he devoted his life to teaching the Islamic doctrine known as khalwātiyya, the main characteristic of which is a life of seclusion from society in order to focus on worshipping God. Shaykh Yūsuf supported Sultan Ageng of Banten in his resistance against the Dutch colonisers. During the campaign of 1683 he was captured and deported to Ceylon. From there he was sent to the Cape Colony, South Africa, where he arrived in 1694. In order to prevent him from influencing the Muslim community in the Colony, he was settled on a remote farm at Zandvliet some distance from Cape Town (Shell, ‘Islam in Southern Africa’, p. 328). The settlement quickly grew to become a Muslim community, attracting many runaway and freed slaves. Gradually, Shaykh Yūsuf ’s teachings spread, presumably by word of mouth, among the slave community. Some scholars argue that Shaykh Yūsuf talked about daʿwa Islāmiyya and called for jihād fī sabīl Allāh, causing some to consider him a rebel against the Dutch colonisers. Dangor (‘Critical biography’, p. 23) points

618

shaykh yūsuf al-maqassārī

out that he had been at the head of the auxiliary troops of the sultan in Indonesia, which Dangor interprets as an indication of his active participation in armed opposition. Continuous appeals by the king of Goa to have Shaykh Yūsuf released were to no avail; in 1698, the Batavian Council issued a final refusal of his release. In 1699, Shaykh Yūsuf died at the age of 70. He was buried on a hill, which became known as Macassar, named after his home town. This continued to serve as a remembrance of the place where Shaykh Yūsuf lived and died during his exile, and is still today a popular place of pilgrimage. In 1705, his remains were returned to Makassar (today known as Ujung Padang) in Indonesia. Shaykh Yūsuf is known as an expert on Shāfiʿī fiqh and also taṣawwuf. He is venerated as a great Sufi master in south Sulawesi, and as the father of the Khalwātiyya order (Mustafa, Agama). Twenty works in the Library Museum of Central Jakarta are attributed to Shaykh Yūsuf. They consist of longer and shorter texts in Makassarese, Bugis, Javanese and Arabic, mostly relating to Sufism and Arabic grammar. Adrianus van Selms (‘Yusuf, Sjech’) says that his writings provide an important contribution to understanding the early development of languages in the Cape Colony, and especially Afrikaans, which was first written in the Cape Colony in Arabic letters. Van Selms also sees him as an important religious influence among Muslims in the Cape, particularly for his teachings about seeking the presence of God in worldly situations.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Extract uijt de Generale Resolutions, Cape Archive Depot C 424 30 Oct. 1699 (contains the names of all who accompanied Shaykh Yūsuf to the Cape Colony) Bandiette Rolle 1744-1766, Cape Archive Depot CJ 318, 324, 325 488, 579, 582, 589 A. Ligtvoet (ed. and trans.), Lontara Bilang, ‘Transcriptie van het dagboek der vorsten van Gowa en Tello met vertaling en aanteekeningen’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 28 (1880) 1-259 Secondary F. Darries and G.T. Darries, Zandvliet. Cape Town’s Islamic heritage, Wynberg, Cape Town, 2014 Muzdalifah Sahib, Shaykh Yusuf al-Makassary. His life story as a national hero from Gowa, South Sulawesi to Cape Town, South Africa, and a reformer in Islamic mystic world, Yogyakarta, 2014



shaykh yūsuf al-maqassārī

619

Mustari Mustafa, Agama dan Bayang-Bayang Etis. Syaikh Yusuf Al-Makassari [Religion and ethical shadows. Shaykh Yusuf Al-Makassari], Yogyakarta, 2014 S. Misbach-Habib and M. Hutchinson, Mix it. Voices of the Bo-Kaap, Pietermaritzburg, 2008 A. Azra, The origins of Islamic reformism in Southeast Asia. Networks of MalayIndonesian and Middle Eastern ʿulamāʾ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Honolulu HI, 2004, pp. 87-108 S.N. Cassiem, Muhammed. The pathway to the garden, Pretoria, 2004, pp. 1-17 R.C.-H. Shell, ‘Islam in Southern Africa, 1652-1998’, in N. Levtzion and R.L. Pouwels, (eds), The history of Islam in Africa, Ohio, 2000, 327-48 N. Worden, E. van Heyningen and V. Bickford-Smith, Cape Town. The making of a city, Claremont, South Africa, 1998, pp. 124-7 M. Haron (ed.), Muslims in South Africa. An annotated bibliography, Cape Town, 1997 Y. da Costa and A. Davids, Pages from Cape Muslim history, Pietermaritzburg, 1994 C. Schoeman, District Six. The spirit of Kanala, Cape Town, 1994 M. van Bruinessen, ‘Shariʿa court, tarekat and pesantran. Religious institutions in the Bantan sultanate’, Archipel 50 (1995) 165-99 S.E. Dangor, ‘A critical biography of Shayk Yusuf ’, Mobeni, Durban, 1981 (MA Diss. University of Durban-Westville (now Kwazulu-Natal)) I.D. du Plessis, The Cape Malay. History, religion, tradition, folk-tales. The Malay quarter, Cape Town, 1972, pp. 6-31 A. van Selms, art. ‘Yusuf, Sjech’, in W.J. de Kock (ed.), Dictionary of South African biography, Cape Town, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 893-4

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Zubdat al-asrār, ‘The essence of the mysteries’ Date Second half of the 17th century Original Language Arabic Description Zubdat al-asrār is approximately 24 pages long, written in Arabic. It deals with the various stages of the Sufi path, explained by the use of quotations from the Qur’an, Hadith, sayings of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and Sufi masters, anecdotes of the deeds of saints and passages from poetry. In one particular section, Shaykh Yūsuf indicates the way in which nonMuslims are to be treated according to the way of taṣawwuf: ‘Honour the guest, even if he is a disbeliever . . . He who believes in Allah and His

620

shaykh yūsuf al-maqassārī

Messenger must honour his neighbour’ (Zubdat al-asrār, ed. Dangor, p. 15). Further on, he states: ‘. . . the essential feature of good conduct with all creation is to bring comfort to them and to be cordial with them and not to be estranged from them’ (p. 17). Although these passages do not explicitly allude to relations with Christians, this prescription about how non-Muslims are to be treated possibly served as a guideline for relations of Muslims with them in the Cape Colony. It is also not clear when and where Shaykh Yūsuf wrote this work, Sulawesi or the Cape Colony, and whether the ‘guests’ and ‘disbelievers’ refer to the non-Muslim community in general (e.g. Javanese traditional believers) or – which is also likely – to the Christian colonisers in Banten and the Cape Colony. Dangor (‘A critical biography’, p. 41) points out that, according to tradition, Shaykh Yūsuf got along very well with the governors of the Cape Colony, especially Simon van der Stel (governor 1679-91) and his son and successor Willem Adrian van der Stel (governor 1699-1707). Significance Considering that most of the Muslims at the Cape at the end of the 17th century were either political exiles or slaves, who were living in a context where ‘Islam was tolerated, but never sanctioned or recognised’ (Da Costa and Davids, Pages from Cape Muslim history, p. 60), these brief instructions by Shaykh Yūsuf suggest a way of being Muslim under an oppressive colonial regime and in a non-Muslim world. Shaykh Yūsuf was not the first Muslim in the Cape Colony but he was certainly the most influential in terms of spiritual guidance to the Muslim community in the most southern part of Africa, where he was widely hailed as the ‘founding father’ of South African Islam. Publications MS Leiden, University Library – Or. 7025 (19th century; Javanese collection of some of Shaykh Yūsuf’s works including Zubdat al-asrār) Shaykh Yūsuf, Zubdat al-asrār. The essence of secrets, ed. and trans. S.E. Dangor, Durban, 1990 Studies Mustari, Agama dan Bayang-Bayang Etis W. Cummings, The Makassar annals, Leiden, 2010 C.S. Tudjimah, Syekh Yusuf Makasar. Riwayat hidup, karya dan ajar­ annya, Jakarta, 1997



shaykh yūsuf al-maqassārī

621

M. van Bruinessen, ‘The tariqa Khalwatiyya in South Celebes’, in H.A. Poeze and P. Schoorl (eds), Excursies in Celebes. Een bundel bijdragen bij het afscheid van J. Noorduyn, Leiden, 1991, 251-69 Y. da Costa and A. Davids, Pages from Cape Muslim history, Pietermaritzburg, 1994 A.A. Cense, ‘De verering van Sjaich Jusuf in Zuid-Celebes’, in Bingkisan Bud. Een bundel opstellen (aangeboden) aan Dr. Phillipus Samuel van Ronkel, Leiden, 1950, 5-57 P.S. Ronkel, Supplement to the catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the Museum of the Batavia Society of Arts and Sciences, Batavia, 1913 Jaco Beyers

Index of Names Numbers in italics indicate a main entry. ʿAbd al-Raʾūf al-Singkilī 8, 278, 402, 411-17 ʿAbd al-Sattār ibn Qāsim Lāhōrī 7, 85, 116-17, 134-40 ablutions 145, 146, 519 abolition of the slave trade 30-1, 33-4, 42-6, 49, 63-5, 533 Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurṭubī 8, 412 Abū l-Fataḥ (Ageng), Sultan of Banten  463, 617 Abū l-Fayz̤, ‘Fayz̤ī’ 92, 95 Abū l-Faz̤l 11, 85, 89, 92-101, 107, 112, 114, 150-1, 153, 155-6, 216-17 Abyssinia and Abyssinians, see also Ethiopia 36, 41-2, 484-6, 588, 595-6 Aceh, Sultanate of, and Acehnese 1-2, 7, 10, 13, 16, 21-2, 24-5, 81, 277-9, 287, 297-9, 321, 324-7, 344-6, 356, 358-9, 361, 400, 411, 412, 415, 443, 462-3, 504 Acquaviva, Rodolfo 96, 113, 211, 218-19 ʿAdal 40, 540, 595-6, 599 Adam, sons of Adam 29, 95, 151, 385, 387, 394, 437, 519, 559 Aden 35, 41, 44, 184, 443, 469, 473, 513, 547, 549 Afghanistan 103, 106-8, 208 Afonso Mendes 568, 585-91, 599 Agarene (descendant of Hagar) 209 Agra 85, 93, 96, 104, 150, 175, 180-1, 182-3, 197, 216, 238, 243, 259, 261-2, 264, 448 Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī 8, 33, 481-7 Aḥmad Grañ (Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī, Aḥmed Grañ) 490, 512, 595-6, 599 Ahmadnagar 82, 104, 121, 124 Ai Tian 304, 315, 450 Ajmer 152, 164, 166, 183, 264 Akbar, Mughal Emperor 1, 5, 7, 11, 84-5, 87-89, 90, 92-3, 94-6, 98, 102-20, 122, 134-5, 139, 150-1, 153-5, 156-7, 166, 183-4, 211, 214-18, 219-20, 243, 245, 251, 258, 262-4 ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Riʿāya Shāh, ‘Sayyid al-Mukammil’ 287, 299 Albuquerque, Afonso, Viceroy of India 82, 311, 549 Albuquerque, Matias de 80-3

Alcoran, Al Coran, see also Qur’an 76, 208-9, 226, 262 Alcorão, see also Qur’an 513 Alenio, Giulio 446-60 Alexandre de Rhodes 422, 446-60 Alexis de Saint-Lô 9, 556-60 Almeida, Manoel de 499, 513, 515, 544, 547, 568-72, 586, 594, 599 Alonso de Sandoval 530-7 Alvares de Almada, André 476-80, 522, 525 Álvares, Manuel 12, 493, 499-503, 534 Álvaro de Semedo (Zeng Dezhao, Xie Wulu, Sai Moduo) 351-5 Amazon, River 161, 605 Ambon and the Ambonese 3, 16-17, 23, 46, 309, 322, 329-30, 368, 369-70, 372, 373, 400, 402, 419, 421, 463 Americas 1, 2, 6, 38, 39, 42, 49, 59-60, 65, 536 Amharic language 509, 540 André Donelha 9, 522-9 Andrea-Giovanni Lubelli (Lu Tairan, Lu Ande) 432-41 ‘Angola’ (Loango, at the mouth of the River Congo) 187, 190, 492 Antichrist 155, 209, 561, 565, 603, 606, 609 Antonio de Gouvea (He Dahua) 432-41 Antonio Monserrate 90, 105, 107-8, 113, 155, 157, 219, 508, 513, 514, 597, 598 António Vieira 6, 9, 601-10 apostasy 20, 33, 90, 250, 334, 583 Arabs and Arabic 7, 10, 23-4, 32-4, 37-8, 42, 51, 52, 54, 57, 62-3, 66, 76, 89, 90, 106, 125, 129, 130, 131-3, 145, 150, 183, 212, 227, 250-1, 273, 277, 278, 298, 327, 348, 352-3, 358, 368, 411, 412-13, 415-16, 418, 421, 430, 448, 453, 472-3, 474, 478, 506, 507, 508-9, 513-4, 552, 570, 580, 582, 588, 597, 599, 612, 614, 617-18, 619 Armenian and Armenians 36, 114, 180, 225, 259, 262, 317, 366, 559 Aṣḥama, King of Ethiopia 485 Atlantic Ocean 49, 54-8, 60, 67, 476, 525, 527, 615

624

Index of names

Augustinian Order 17, 21, 207, 333, 366, 446, 499, 551-2 Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr, Mughal Emperor 1, 10, 95, 117, 181, 231, 238, 244, 248, 250-1, 253, 443 Austin, Allan 59, 62-3 Australia 180-1, 322 Avril, Philippe 446-60 Bābur, first Mughal Emperor 95, 153 Badāʾūnī, ʿAbd al-Qādir 89, 90, 97, 98, 107, 121, 150-60, 219 Bahādur Shāh 104, 124, 469 Bahia, Brazil 3, 62, 601-3 Balthazar Tellez 9, 515, 570, 592-600 Banda and the Bandanese 175, 280-1, 282, 306-7, 309, 329-30, 372 Bandarra, Gonçalo Anes, ‘the shoemaker of Trancoso’ 602, 605, 606 Bantam or Banten, Sultanate of 2, 3, 19, 20, 22, 180, 280, 282, 297, 306-7, 309, 321, 364, 463, 504, 617, 620 Baṛī Ṣaḥib bint Muḥammad Quṭb Shāh 231-7 Barradas, Manuel 41, 547-50, 568, 586 Barreira, Baltasar 5, 12, 492-8, 499, 502, 503, 534 Barros, João de 36, 204 Barros, Manoel de 492 Bartoli, Daniello 211-22 Batavia, see also Jakarta 3, 11, 19-20, 22, 25, 175, 178, 181, 182, 307, 344, 346, 364, 365, 372, 442, 444, 461, 462, 463, 464, 618 Baylūl 549, 580, 581, 588 Beijing 291, 301, 313, 317, 377, 393, 425, 436 Bengal and Bengali 45, 96, 106, 109, 142, 144, 203, 207 Berber, Berbers 33, 53, 54, 57, 485 Bernier, François 6, 11, 179, 199, 238-47 Bible 51, 53, 63, 64, 66, 89, 96, 157, 212, 219, 220, 225, 262, 299, 464, 534, 561 Bibliander, Theodore 284, 325 Bijapur 115, 121-2, 123-4, 134, 231-3, 236 Blyden, Edward Wilmont 64 Bobadilla, Diego de 340-3 Bor, Livinus 372-6, 423 Borneo 16-17, 273, 275 Bornu 32, 40, 483 Boston, Massachusetts 561, 562, 564 Brahmins 88, 244-5, 264 Brazil, Brazilian 3, 9, 62, 142, 214, 442, 443, 601-2 British East India Company 1, 2, 3, 141, 162, 164, 166, 168, 223, 231, 256, 258, 261, 263, 297, 504

Broecke, Pieter van den 181, 184, 187-94, 197, 506 Brunei 15, 17, 19, 273, 274-5 Buddhism and Buddhists 10, 252, 294, 315, 348, 349, 350, 398, 399, 435 Buenaventura Ibáñez (Wen Dula) 446-60 Bugis 402-3, 406, 618 Buglio, Lodovico (Li Leisi) 377, 384, 388, 393-9, 426 Buhayen 342, 391 Bukhari Jawhari or Johori 7, 287-90 Busaeus, Johannes 446-60 Cacheu 493, 500, 573, 575 Calicut 35, 125, 129-30, 131-2, 133 Calvinism and Calvinists 18-20, 177, 195, 198, 218, 310-11, 321, 556, 559, 560, 561 Cambay 35-6, 112, 114 Canton 297, 351, 377, 432, 436 Cape Colony 46-7, 617-18, 620 Cape of Good Hope 203, 256, 297, 322, 506 Cape Town 2, 463, 617 Cape Verde 187, 190, 476, 477-8, 479, 492, 493, 494, 500, 522-3, 524-5, 533 Cape Verde Islands 476, 478, 493, 499, 500, 522, 525 Capuchins 5, 9, 220, 366, 556-7, 558-9, 573-4, 575, 576 Cardeira, Luis 547, 568 Carmelites 117, 366 Cartagena de Indias 530-1, 532-3, 536, 573, 575 cartaz (Portuguese naval passport) system 107, 112, 115 Carvalho, Francisco 547, 568 Casas, Bartolomé de las 61, 65 Castilians and Castilian 17, 87, 208, 508 Cathay 293, 315-16, 448 Celebes (Sulawesi) 17, 175, 400, 420, 617-18, 620 Ceylon 82, 142, 173, 203, 461, 463, 568, 617 Chaliyam 80, 131, 132 Chambonneau, Louis Moreau de 9, 611-16 Charles I, King of England 223, 517 Chaul, Battle of 12, 80-1, 82, 124, 508 China and Chinese 19, 31, 35, 73-4, 113, 173, 203, 208, 212, 214, 258, 273, 274, 281, 291, 293, 294, 298, 301, 304, 305, 313, 314-17, 332-3, 348, 350, 351, 352-3, 377, 379, 380, 382, 383, 385, 387, 390, 393, 394-5, 397, 420, 425-6, 432, 433-7, 443, 444, 446, 448-52, 454, 461 Church Missionary Society (CMS) 44, 65



Index of names

circumcision 21, 25, 42, 76, 124, 145, 204, 261, 284, 309, 325, 443, 519, 585, 589, 613 Coelho, Francisco de Lemos 525, 574 Coen, Jan Pieterszoon 11, 187, 306-12, 329, 461 Colombia 59, 273, 530 Colombo 81 colonialism 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 13, 17, 36-7, 43-5, 46-7, 49, 58-9, 61, 62, 65, 167, 176, 191, 275, 301, 307, 310, 323, 329, 330, 370, 406, 411-12, 463, 465, 562, 565-6, 602, 611, 620 Combes, Francisco 5, 390-2 Comoro Islands 10, 46, 142, 144, 164, 506 Compagnie des Mers Orientales 141 Confucian Muslims (Huiru) 350 Confucianism 294, 348, 350, 383, 387, 388, 395, 434, 437 Congregatio Sacra de Propaganda Fide 418, 556, 558, 573, 576, 588 Converts and conversion, see also forced conversion 4, 15, 16-17, 18-20, 21-4, 33, 40-2, 46, 50, 52-3, 55, 61, 63, 77, 81, 82, 84, 89, 96, 113, 115, 116, 124-5, 132, 133, 156, 166, 201, 203-4, 215-18, 219, 235-6, 243, 250-2, 262, 275, 287, 309, 315, 322, 324, 327, 330, 333, 346, 353, 383, 398, 418-19, 422, 423, 448, 450, 452, 453-4, 462, 464, 478, 483-4, 495, 501, 525-6, 531, 536, 542, 551-2, 554, 558-9, 561, 575, 580, 583, 586, 588-9, 596, 599, 602-3, 611, 614 Corcuera, Sebastián Hurtado de 341, 391, 392 Cordyte, Thomas 166, 224, 256-68 Cornelis Speelman 364-7, 402-4 Coromandel, Coromandel coast 187, 364 Correia, Gaspar 36 Coryat, Thomas see Thomas Cordyte, 166, 224, 256-68 Cotton, John 561-7 Couto, Diogo do 81, 174, 594 Daniel, Book of 606, 608, 609 Daoism 348, 349, 350, 437 Dara Shikoh 117, 238, 243, 244-5 Davis, John 297-300, 322 Deccan 85, 92-3, 103-4, 105, 115-16, 121-2, 123, 125, 157, 187, 190, 191, 204, 215, 231 Dhimma and dhimmīs 51, 102, 251-2, 310, 485-6 Dhofar (Ẓafār) 508, 513-14, 597 Diaz, Emmanuel (Yang Manuo) 446-60 Diego de Pantoja (Pang Diwo, Pang Die, Shunyang) 291-6, 314, 316, 449 Dieu, Louis de 211-22, 448

625

Ding Peng 432-41 Dīn-i ilāhī 103, 140, 154, 218 Diu, India 107, 111, 124, 508-9, 588-9, 597-9 Domingo Fernàndez de Navarrete 446-60 Dominican Order 5, 17, 61, 65, 339, 421, 446, 452, 511, 611 Donelha, André 9, 522-9 Dutch West India Company 2, 3, 195 East Indies 46, 73, 77, 141, 173, 214, 216, 258, 281, 284, 297, 306-7, 308, 321-2, 325, 327, 332, 339, 364, 442, 444, 446 Edward Terry 8, 10, 197, 223-30, 262 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 21, 161, 266 Emmanuel Diaz (Yang Manuo) 446-60 Emmanuelis Pignerio 446-60 enforced migration 29, 45, 49, 50, 59 enslavement and slavery 2, 8-9, 18, 29-31, 31-4, 36-9, 39-42, 42-4, 45-7, 49, 50-2, 52-3, 54-8, 58-60, 60-2, 62-4, 64-7, 182, 288, 307, 333, 335, 372, 452, 474, 476, 482, 483-4, 485-6, 495, 518, 522, 526, 530-1, 532-5, 536, 558, 602, 613-15, 617, 620 Entji’ Amin 26, 400-10 Erpenius, Thomas 23, 212, 278 Estado da Índia 107, 111-14, 116, 235, 332, 344-5, 347 Ethiopia and Ethiopians, see also Abyssinia 4, 6, 12, 35, 40, 41, 43, 67, 75, 214, 238, 243, 473, 488-9, 490, 491, 508-10, 512, 513-14, 515, 535, 538, 539, 540, 541, 547-8, 549, 550, 568-9, 569-70, 571, 578, 580-4, 585-6, 588-9, 591, 592, 594-5, 596-9, 599-600 Ethiopian Orthodox Church 489, 509, 514, 538, 570-1, 581, 582, 589, 594, 599-600 Faria y Souza, Manuel de 352, 549 farman (decree) 5, 111-15, 116 Fasilädäs, Emperor of Ethiopia 538-9, 547, 578, 580-2, 586, 588-9, 599 Fatehpur Sikri 103, 105, 113, 154 Ferdinand Verbiest 377, 388, 393, 394, 398, 425-31 Fernão Guerreiro 211-22, 479, 495 Fernão Mendes Pinto 332-8 Finch, William 197, 256-68 Firishta, see also Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī 121-8, 134 Fitch, Ralph 256-68 forced conversion 40, 132-3, 251, 483, 599, 602

626

Index of names

Franciscan Order 6, 9, 13, 17, 21, 117, 201-2, 203-5, 332-3, 344, 446, 451 Francisco Rodrigues Silveira 171-4 Francisco de Sande 273-6 François Pallu 446-60 François Pelsaert 8, 11, 178, 180-6, 197 François Pyrard de Laval 141-9 François de Rougemont (Lu Riman)  432-41 François Solier 332-8 Frederick de Houtman 5, 10, 24, 321-31, 462 French East India Company 239 Fulani 33, 53, 59, 495 Gabriel de Magalhaes (An Wensi) 377, 393, 394, 398, 426 Gälawdewos, Emperor of Ethiopia 571, 595-6 Gama, Christovão da 512, 515, 596 Gama, Vasco da 35-6, 130 Gambia River 12, 517, 518-19, 526, 573, 575 Gambia and Gambians 518-19, 573 Garcia de Orto 197 Gaspar de Sevilla 5, 6, 573-7 Gasparo Spitilli 446-60 Gəʿəz (classical Ethiopic) 509, 540 Geleynssen de Jongh, Wollebrant 11, 175-9, 181, 182, 184 Ghana 187, 191 Giulio Alenio 446-60 Goa, India 9, 35, 41, 73, 75-6, 77, 80-1, 84-5, 88-9, 96, 105, 108, 111-13, 115, 123-4, 142, 154, 171, 201, 203, 207, 211, 215-16, 218, 232, 235, 253, 301, 332, 344, 345, 351, 352, 419, 421, 508, 513, 542, 547, 549, 551-2, 568, 569, 585-86, 588, 594, 599 Góis, Bento de 84, 114-15, 117, 197, 215, 294, 315-17, 448 Golconda 115, 231, 238 Gonçalo Veloso de São José 344-7 Gondar 41, 581-3 Gospels 89, 93, 106, 113, 116, 155, 156-7, 204, 205, 514, 582, 596 Gouvea, Antonio de (He Dahua) 432-41 Gowa (Goa), Celebes (Sulawesi) 1, 13, 400, 403, 406, 418, 617-18 Graaff, Nicolaus de 442-5 Grotius, Hugo 23, 195-6 Guangzhou 432 Guerreiro, Fernão 211-22, 479, 495 Guiana 161 Guinea Bissau 493, 525, 575 Guinea Coast 5, 476, 477, 492, 495, 501, 522-3, 534, 536, 558, 560, 573, 575

Guinea Company 517, 611 Guinea of Cape Verde 476, 492-3, 494, 500, 522-3, 525 Guinea, Guinean 476, 478, 492, 496, 499, 517, 519, 522-3, 524-5, 534, 556, 558, 573-4, 575-6 Gujarat and Gujaratis 25, 45, 106, 109, 111-12, 124-5, 155, 157, 175, 177-9, 182, 184, 187-8, 190, 256, 461-2, 469 Guzmán, Luys de 211-22, 292 Ḥaḍramawt 129, 508, 513-14, 515, 578, 597 Ham, son of Noah 49, 52-4, 63, 483, 613 Ḥamza Fanṣūrī 17, 356, 400-1, 402, 462 Hangzhou 313, 432 Han-Kitāb 348, 350 Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥaymī 4, 578-84 Hawkins, William 256-68 Hay, John 446-60 al-Ḥaymī, Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad 4, 578-84 Haynīn 508, 513, 515 Ḥərgigo 490, 491, 549 Ḥijāz 107, 109, 233 Hinduism and Hindus 8, 10, 35-6, 45, 47, 76, 88, 96, 102-3, 115, 116-17, 122, 129, 131-2, 151, 177, 179, 182-3, 184, 201-2, 204, 224-5, 227, 228-9, 243, 244-5, 250-2, 258, 263-4, 401, 444 Hindustan and Hindustanis 112, 115, 183 Hitu and the Hituese 3, 7, 329-30, 368, 369-70, 372, 373-4 Hoamoal 368, 372, 372-4 Hormuz, see also Ormuz 35, 80-2, 108, 171, 184, 205, 262, 509, 513 Horn of Africa 9, 35, 40, 512, 515, 540, 588, 594, 596 Houtman, Cornelis de 280-1, 282, 321, 323, 325 Houtman, Frederick de 5, 10, 24, 321-31, 462 Humāyūn, Mughal Emperor 95, 102, 124, 153, 197 Huygen van Linschoten, Jan 41, 73-9, 191   ʿibādat-khāna 103, 154, 157, 220 Ibáñez, Buenaventura (Wen Dula) 446-60 Ibn al-ʿArabī 88, 358 Ibn Khaldūn 34, 58, 484 Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II, Sultan of Bijapur 121 Imperial Observatory, Beijing 377, 380, 382, 425-6 India and Indians 1, 5-6, 7-9, 10, 11-12, 13, 16, 31, 33, 35-8, 43-44, 45-7, 66, 75-7, 80-1,



Index of names

84-5, 88, 90, 94-6, 98, 107-9, 116, 121-2, 122-5, 125-6, 129, 133, 141-2, 146, 150, 153, 157, 162-3, 164, 166, 167-8, 171, 174, 175-6, 177, 178-9, 181, 182-3, 184, 187-8, 190, 195, 196-7, 198, 201, 203-4, 207, 208-9, 211-12, 214-15, 217-18, 219-20, 223, 224-6, 228-9, 233, 236, 238, 244, 248, 250, 253, 256, 258-61, 263-5, 281, 297, 315, 332-3, 344, 401, 418, 442, 448, 461, 469, 474, 490, 504, 506, 508, 510, 547, 549, 568, 586, 589, 596-8, 602 Indonesia 2-4, 12, 15, 16, 18-19, 23, 26-7, 35, 45, 180, 182, 184, 280-1, 282, 284, 285, 306, 308-9, 310-11, 321, 324, 325, 329-30, 332, 344, 372, 373, 419, 465, 504, 506, 617-18 Inquisition 55-6, 61, 229, 601-2, 605, 608 Inquisition of Goa 201, 547 Iran and Iranians 38, 88, 90, 175, 177, 197, 207, 233 Iraq 38, 132, 250, 253, 513 Isfahan 90, 233, 365, 366 Iskandar Muda, Sultan of Aceh 1, 299, 345, 411 Iskandar Thānī, Sultan of Aceh 345, 356, 443 Istanbul 162, 301, 469, 474 Jacob Cornelisz. van Neck 12, 280-6, 325 Jahāngīr, Mughal Emperor 1, 7, 8, 10, 85, 87, 95, 104, 109, 115, 116-17, 121, 125, 134-5, 136, 138-40, 151, 162, 164, 166-7, 167-8, 183, 197, 216-17, 223, 243, 258-9, 261, 504, 506 Jainism 35-6, 103, 177, 179, 250 Jakarta, Jakatra, Jayakarta, see also Batavia 3, 11,19, 20, 22, 25, 175, 178, 181-2, 187, 306-7, 309, 344, 346, 364-5, 372, 442, 444, 461-2, 463-4, 465, 618 Jalofos (present-day Wolof) 478-9, 501, 525 James I, King of England 161-2, 164, 168, 297, 504, 506 Jan Huygen van Linschoten 41, 73-9, 191 Japan and the Japanese 23, 73-4, 113, 203, 207, 214, 298, 301, 307, 332-3, 334-5, 339, 446, 448, 461 Jarric, Pierre du 211-22, 495 Java and the Javanese 2, 3, 16, 18, 19, 20, 24-5, 27, 129, 207, 280-1, 282, 284, 306-7, 364, 369, 402, 416, 418, 421, 504, 617-18 Jawi Malay (Malay written in Arabic script) 287, 368, 412 Jeddah 43, 242, 443 Jerome Xavier 84-91, 109, 114, 116-17, 134-5, 211-12, 215-16, 218, 220, 315, 449

627

Jerusalem 109, 421, 514, 566 Jesus Christ 24, 25, 41, 50, 57, 89, 107, 116, 125, 126, 135, 139, 155,156, 157, 166, 202, 211, 212, 216, 227, 260, 261, 262, 278, 325, 327, 359, 361, 383, 387, 395, 512, 514, 519, 524, 531, 535, 552, 559, 565, 566, 596-7, 606, 608-9 Jihad 7, 32, 51, 58, 126, 132, 151, 403-4, 473, 484, 615 Jimera, Antonio de 573 jizya 96, 102, 251, 253, 582 Joal 493, 556-7, 558-9, 575 Joannes de Laet 10, 177, 188, 195-200 Joannes Oranus 446-60 João IV, King of Portugal 588, 601, 605 Jobson, Richard 12, 517-21 Johann Adam Schall (Tang Ruowang) 377-81, 383, 387, 393, 425-6, 429, 436 Johannes Busaeus 446-60 John Hay 446-60 Kaʿb al-Aḥbār 53 Al-Kasr el-Kebir, Battle of 476, 603 Kerala 129-30 Kilwa 35-6, 38-9, 42, 204 Knolles, Richard 163 Koca Sinān Pasha 471-4 La Goleta, Battle of 472-4 Laet, Joannes de 10, 177, 188, 195-200 Lahore 84, 96, 114-15, 117, 134, 215-16, 448, 469 Lancaster, James 2, 21, 297 Leo Africanus 60 Li Zhizao 301, 434 Li Zubai 385, 386-7, 394 Linschoten, Jan Huygen van 41, 73-9, 191 Lisbon 73-4, 80, 105, 171, 211, 235, 321, 352, 472, 476-7, 479, 492, 502, 551, 557, 585, 588, 592, 601-2 Llull, Ramon 88 Longobardo, Nicolò 446-60 Louis XIII, King of France 143, 556 Louis de Dieu 211-22, 448 Luanda 492, 533 Lubelli, Andrea-Giovanni (Lu Tairan, Lu Ande) 432-41 Luis Mariano 542-6 Luso-Mughal alliance 106, 108, 116 Luther, Martin and Lutherans 22, 63, 65, 265, 310, 559, 560 Luys de Guzmán 211-22, 292

628

Index of names

Ma Junshi 348 Macau 9, 173, 201, 207, 291, 297, 301, 313, 316, 351, 377, 393, 425, 432, 436, 442 Machomet (Muḥammad) 75 Madagascar 46, 142, 281, 542-3, 544-5 Mafamede, Mafoma (Muḥammad) 420, 526 Magalhaes, Gabriel de (An Wensi) 377, 393, 394, 398, 426 Mahamed, Mahamêd (Muḥammad) 43, 513 Mahomedans, Mahometan, Mahometanae, Mahometanus, Mahometists, Mahometorum, Mahumetans, Mahumetanus (Muslims) 146, 177, 224-7, 228, 259-60, 261, 263, 299, 308, 309, 317, 380, 429, 430, 434, 436, 437, 449, 451, 453, 506, 613 Mahomet (Muḥammad) 9, 75-6, 146, 166, 216, 226-7, 260, 262, 266, 294, 335, 443, 451, 558, 605, 613 Makassar and the Makassarese 1, 7, 16-17, 19, 20, 364, 368, 372, 373-4, 400, 403-4, 406, 420, 422, 618 Makassar War 402-4, 406 Makhlūf ibn ʿAlī ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Balbālī 53, 484, 485 Malabar 35, 75, 80-1, 112, 125, 146, 173, 421, 547 Malacca 2, 3, 81, 188, 203, 297, 332, 345, 418-22 Malagasy 45, 327, 544 Malay Archipelago and Malays 1, 2, 11, 13, 16, 21-4, 26, 46, 278-9, 281, 284, 322, 326-7, 344, 344-5, 358, 361, 368, 400-1, 402-4, 406, 411, 412, 415-16, 418, 420, 461, 462 Maldives and Maldivians 142, 144, 145-7, 324 Malindi 35-6, 41, 506, 551-2 Maluku Islands 332, 418 Mandinka, Mandinga 61, 495, 502, 525-6, 534, 536 Manila 17, 18-19, 22, 25, 273, 275, 340, 341, 342, 390, 420 Manrique, Sebastião 207-10 Maomé, Maomede (Muḥammad) 526, 603, 609 Mappilas 129-30, 132 al-Maqassārī, Shaykh Yūsuf 20, 47, 463, 617-21 Mariano, Luis 542-6 Martin Luther 22, 265 Mary, Virgin 35, 107, 114, 126, 139, 156-7, 325, 359, 513-14, 552

Massawa, Eritrea 490-1, 509, 513, 547, 549, 570, 580-3, 586, 588-9, 595, 598-9 Mataram, Javanese kingdom 3, 20, 25, 307, 364 Mather, Richard 562 Mather, Cotton 562 Mather, Increase 562 Matteo Ricci (Li Madou, Xitai, Qingtai, Xijiang) 294, 301-5, 314-16, 317, 353, 434-5, 449-50 Maxete (Mashhad) 209 Mecca 20, 41, 43, 51, 66, 75, 109, 112, 145, 209, 232, 235, 242-3, 299, 301, 311, 315, 421, 443, 463, 469-70, 544, 596, 617 Medina 43, 109, 301, 469-70 Mendes, Afonso 568, 585-91, 599 Meneses, Diogo de 80-1 Meneses, Luís de 603 Mi Wanji 436 Minangkabau 400, 402, 463 Minas, Emperor of Ethiopia 571, 595 Mindanao, island of 18, 340, 341-2, 390, 391, 392 Ming period, Ming dynasty 350, 377, 434 Ministry of Rites, Beijing 291, 384-5, 387, 397, 436 Mohammad, Mohammed (Muḥammad) 17, 34, 453, 495-6, 534-5, 575 Mokha 232-3, 235, 238, 508, 597 Moluccas 5, 175, 306, 309, 322, 329, 364, 368, 369, 375, 402-3, 420-1 Mombasa Martyrs 41, 204, 551-5 Mombasa 4, 35, 41, 44, 108, 551-2, 554 Monserrate, Antonio 90, 105, 107-8, 113, 155, 157, 219, 508, 513, 514, 597, 598 Moor, Moors, Moores, Mores, More, Moorish, Maurus, Moro 9, 16, 26, 56-7, 61-2, 63, 76-7, 177, 204, 209, 235, 258-9, 261-4, 266, 293-4, 304-5, 309-10, 324, 335, 339, 352-3, 443, 449, 451, 453, 462, 464, 478, 495, 512-13, 534-5, 552, 554, 570-1, 575, 588-9, 594-8, 609, 614 Moriscos 55, 61, 536 Morocco and Moroccans 29, 33, 55-6, 66, 449, 481, 484 Moses 24, 166, 184, 514, 519, 559 Mozambique 38, 75, 164, 335, 542 al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Muḥammad, ruler of Yemen 578, 580 Mubārak of Nagaur, Shaykh 92, 150 Mughal Empire, mission to the 84,113, 215, 217-18



Index of names

Muḥammad, see also Machomet, Mahamêd, Mahamed, Mahomet, Maomé, Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammad 8, 9, 17, 22-4, 34, 43, 51, 57, 66-7, 75, 76, 89, 129, 145, 146, 155-6, 164, 166, 183-5, 204, 208-9, 216, 226-7, 260, 262, 266, 278, 284, 294, 317, 325, 327, 335, 403, 413, 437, 443, 451, 470, 484, 495-6, 513, 514, 526, 534-5, 552, 558, 559, 575, 582, 595-6, 602, 603, 605, 609, 613 Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh, Sultan of Bijapur 231-2 Muḥammad Qāsim Hindu Shāh Astarābādī, see also Firishta 121-8, 134 Mundy, Peter 256-68 Murād, Mughal Prince 103, 156 Musalman, Musleman, Mussellmen, Mussuleyemans, Mussulman (Muslim) 42, 209, 263-4, 335 Muscat 108, 508 Muslim Astronomical Bureau, Beijing 377, 385, 388, 432, 434-6 al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh, ruler of Yemen 578, 580 al-Nahrawālī, Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad 469-75 Navarrete, Domingo Fernàndez de 446-60 Neck, Jacob Cornelisz. van 12, 280-6, 325 Nestorian stele 351 New Testament 50-1, 54, 562, 564, 582 Newport, Christopher 504, 506 Nicolas Trigault (Jin Nige) 294, 313-20, 353, 450 Nicolaus de Graaff 442-5 Nicolò Longobardo 446-60 Nieuhoff, Johan 232, 236, 443 Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad 121, 151, 153 Niẓām al-Dīn Burhānpūrī, Shaykh 10, 248-55 Noah, Nūḥ 52, 65, 519 Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī 7, 25, 279, 356-63, 402, 462-3 Old Testament 519 Oman and Omanis 31, 38-9, 43, 108 Oranus, Joannes 446-60 Orientalism and Orientalists 125, 154, 167-8, 178, 198, 212 Ormuz, see also Hormuz 35, 80-2, 108, 171, 184, 205, 262, 509, 513 Oromo 41, 490, 538, 583

629

Orto, Garcia de 197 Ottoman Empire 43, 66, 106, 108, 244, 345, 469-70, 491, 607, 609 Pact of ʿUmar 7, 287 Páez, Pedro 488-9, 490, 508-16, 571, 586, 594-5, 597-8 Pallu, François 446-60 Pantoja, Diego de (Pang Diwo, Pang Die, Shunyang) 291-6, 314, 316, 449 Paraclete 514 Paulo da Trindade 5, 6, 9, 13, 201-6 Pedro Páez 488-9, 490, 508-16, 571, 586, 594-5, 597-8 Pedro Teixeira 197 Peking 316 Pelsaert, François 8, 11, 178, 180-6, 197 Pentateuch 50, 106 People of the Book, ahl al-kitāb 10, 51-2, 250-2, 359, 413 Pernambuco, Portuguese colony of 3, 601 Persia and Persians 33-5, 75, 85, 87-8, 90, 93, 96, 106, 111, 116-17, 121, 123, 130, 135, 138, 151, 155, 166, 177, 180, 182-3, 184, 195, 208, 212, 218-20, 233, 235, 238-9, 243, 250, 256, 260, 315, 333, 348, 364, 365-6, 443, 448, 461, 469, 485, 506, 509, 608 Peter Mundy 256-68 Petite Côte 493, 556, 558-9, 573, 575 Peyton, Walter 10, 504-7 Philip I, King of Portugal, also Philip II, King of Spain 73, 81, 105, 106-9, 113 Philip II, King of Portugal, also Philip III, King of Spain 6, 73, 81, 489, 490-1 Philip II, King of Spain, also Philip I, King of Portugal 73, 81, 105, 106-9, 113 Philip III, King of Portugal, also Philip IV, King of Spain 171, 344, 585, 588 Philip III, King of Spain, also Philip II, King of Portugal 6, 73, 81, 489, 490-1 Philip IV, King of Spain, also Philip III, King of Portugal 171, 344, 585, 588 Philippe Avril 446-60 Philippines 5, 15, 18-19, 24, 26-7, 207, 273, 275, 332, 339, 340, 341-2, 391-2, 451 Pierre du Jarric 211-22, 495 Pignerio, Emmanuelis 446-60 Pinheiro, Manuel 84, 114-15, 117, 215 Pinto, Fernão Mendes 332-8 Pork, consumption of as a test of faith 9, 17, 24, 76, 284, 317, 353, 613 Portudal, Senegal 493, 556, 573, 575 Proto-Gospel of James 139

630

Index of names

Psalms, Book of 21, 106 Purchas, Samuel 164, 168, 197, 260, 292, 294, 335, 506, 518 Pyrard de Laval, François 141-9 Quiloa, see also Kilwa 36 Qur’an, see also Alcoran, Al Coran, Alcorão, Koran 12, 16, 21, 23, 31, 33-4, 43, 51, 63, 66, 76, 88-9, 96, 130, 150, 208-9, 226, 262-3, 277, 278, 284, 325, 358, 404, 415, 464, 502, 513-15, 580, 582, 596, 617, 619 Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Nahrawālī 469-75 al‐Ranīrī, Nūr al-Dīn 7, 25, 279, 356-63, 402, 462-3 Rhodes, Alexandre de 422, 446-60 Ricci, Matteo (Li Madou, Xitai, Qingtai, Xijiang) 294, 301-5, 314-16, 317, 353, 434-5, 449-50 Richard Jobson 12, 517-21 Rijali, Sifa 7, 368-71, 423 Roe, Thomas 161-70, 197, 223, 504, 506 Rougemont, François de (Lu Riman)  432-41 Safavid, Safavid dynasty 75, 123, 233 Saint-Lô, Alexis de 9, 556-60 Salīm, Prince, see also Jahāngīr 85, 93, 104, 115, 217 Samuel Purchas 164, 168, 197, 260, 292, 294, 335, 506, 518 Ṣanʿāʾ 508, 514-15, 578, 597 Sande, Francisco de 273-6 Sandoval, Alonso de 530-7 Santiago, island of 9, 476, 478, 492-3, 499-500, 522-3, 526 Santo Agostinho, Nicolau de 333 São José, Gonçalo Veloso de 344-7 Saracens 304-5, 314-17, 353, 453 Saraiva da Gama, Maria 172 Śarṣ́a Dəngəl, Emperor of Ethiopia 488, 491, 538 Sawakin 582, 586, 588-9, 598-9 Scaliger, Joseph 195, 198 Schall, Johann Adam (Tang Ruowang) 377-81, 383, 387, 393, 425-6, 429, 436 Sebastião I, King of Portugal 80-1, 106, 476, 603, 607 Śəʿəlä Krəstos 509, 568 Selim II, Ottoman Sultan 471-2 Śəllase, Täklä 12, 538-42 Semedo, Álvaro de (Zeng Dezhao, Xie Wulu, Sai Moduo) 351-5

Senegal Company, renamed Guinea Company 9, 517, 611, 612, 614-15 Senegal River 478, 523, 525, 611, 613-15 Senegal and Senegalese 9, 477, 493, 525, 556-7, 573, 575, 611-15 Senegambia and Senegambians 55, 57, 59, 476, 477-8, 502, 526-7, 533 Seram (Hoamoal) 368, 369, 372, 373, 374, 375 Sevilla, Gaspar de 5, 6, 573-7 Shāh Jahān, Mughal Emperor 1, 117, 183, 238, 243 Shāh Rūkh 135 Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī 277, 279, 299, 356, 400, 402, 462 Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī 20, 47, 463, 617-21 Sierra Leone 12, 44, 64, 476, 477-8, 493, 495, 499-500, 501-3, 523, 524-5, 573, 575 Sikhs 103 Silveira, Francisco Rodrigues 171-4 al-Singkilī, ʿAbd al-Raʾūf 8, 278, 402, 411-17 Slavery and enslavement 2, 8-9, 18, 29-31, 31-4, 36-9, 39-42, 42-4, 45-7, 49, 50-2, 52-3, 54-8, 58-60, 60-2, 62-4, 64-7, 182, 288, 307, 333, 335, 372, 452, 474, 476, 482, 483-4, 485-6, 495, 518, 522, 526, 530-1, 532-5, 536, 558, 602, 613-15, 617, 620 Smyrna 443 Socotra 36, 204, 504, 506 Sokoto Caliphate 57-8 Solier, François 332-8 Songhai, Songhay 33, 53, 57, 481 South Africa and South Africans 2, 45-7, 463, 617, 620 Speelman, Cornelis 364-7, 402-4 Spitilli, Gasparo 446-60 Sri Lanka 35, 256, 344 Straits of Malacca 297, 345 Sudan and the Sudanese 40, 43, 52, 57, 485, 582 Sulawesi (Celebes) 17, 175, 364, 400, 420, 617, 618, 620 Süleyman the Magnificent, Ottoman Sultan 469, 472 ṣulḥ-i kull (‘peace with all’) 93, 96, 102, 140 Sulu 17, 18-19, 391-2 Sumatra 2, 16-17, 20, 35, 173, 327, 344, 400, 401, 404, 411, 416, 418, 443, 463, 504, 544 Surat 107, 111-12, 125, 164, 166, 175, 180, 182, 184, 187, 190, 238, 256, 506 Susənyos, Ethiopian Emperor 12, 489, 509, 538-9, 540, 547, 568, 585-6 Swahili 30, 31, 35-8, 108



Index of names

Tagalog language and region 273, 275, 340 taḥrīf 7, 89, 139 Täklä Śəllase 12, 538-42 Taoism 294, 398, 399 Tarīm 129, 508, 513, 515, 597 Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste 238 Təgray, Tigray 488, 549, 568, 597 Teixeira, Pedro 197 Tellez, Balthazar 9, 515, 570, 592-600 Ternate and Ternatans 16, 19, 280-1, 284, 306, 308-9, 310, 322, 329, 364, 369, 372, 373, 418-21, 422, 464 Terry, Edward 8, 10, 197, 223-30, 262 Thomas Cordyte 166, 224, 256-68 Thomas Erpenius 23, 212, 278 Thomas Roe 161-70, 197, 223, 504, 506 Tidore 16, 25, 306, 418-19, 422 Timbuktu 53, 57, 481 Torah 51, 361, 583 Toubenan movement 614-15 Trigault, Nicolas (Jin Nige) 294, 313-20, 353, 450 Trindade, Paulo da 5, 6, 9, 13, 201-6 Trinity 23, 25, 126, 139, 154-5, 349, 398, 514, 583 ʿUmar ibn Badr Bī Ṭuwayriq 508, 513, 597 Universities Mission to Central Africa 44 Upper Guinea 495, 501, 522-3, 534, 536 Uris, Sebatino de (Xiong Sanba) 449 Usman dan Fodio 33 Vagnoni, Alfonso (Gao Yizhi) 301 Valentijn, François 16, 281, 323 Valignano, Alessandro (Fan Lian) 301, 335, 420 Vega, Cristobal de la 114, 155 Verbiest, Ferdinand 377, 388, 393, 394, 398, 425-31 Vieira, António 6, 9, 601-10 Vieira, Francisco 421, 568 Virgin Mary 35, 107, 114, 126, 139, 156-7, 325, 359, 513-14, 552

631

Vitelleschi, Muzio (Mutio Vitelleschi) 568, 588 Vlaming van Oudshoorn, Arnold de  372, 373-4, 375 Waalo 611, 613-15 Walter Peyton 10, 504-7 Wang Daiyu 348-50 West Africa and West Africans 2, 8, 9, 12, 42, 53, 55, 57, 58, 61, 476, 479, 481-2, 483-4, 485, 495, 502, 519, 527, 536, 558, 611, 612, 615-16 William Hawkins 256-68 Wolof 59, 478-9, 495, 502, 525, 536, 613-14 Wu Mingxuan (Uming-huen) 377, 384, 425, 429, 432-41 Wu Xiangxiang 383, 385 Xavier, Francis 84, 214-15, 332, 342, 419-21 Xavier, Jerome 84-91, 109, 114, 116-17, 134-5, 211-12, 215-16, 218, 220, 315, 449 Xian 351, 377-8, 425 Xu Qingyu (Xu Zhijan) 387 Yaʿəqob, Ethiopian Emperor 488, 540, 595 Yang Guangxian (Yang Kuang-hsien, Yangquangsenius) 377, 382-9, 394-5, 397, 398, 425-6, 429, 432, 435-6 Yemen and Yemenis 108, 129, 187, 190, 191, 232, 238, 470, 471-3, 513-14, 578, 580-1, 582, 583, 598 Yusuf ben al-Hassan, king of Malindi and Mombasa 41, 551-2, 554 Zä Dəngəl, Emperor of Ethiopia 6, 488-91, 509 Zamboanga 18-19, 390, 391 Zamorin, Zamorins 130-2 Zanzibar 39, 42-4, 47 Zayn al-Dīn al-Maʿbarī 131 Zhang Xianzhong 393 Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians 103, 157, 177, 179, 251

Index of Titles Numbers in italics indicate a main entry. Abolition of slavery 66 Abrégé de la philosophie de Gassendi 239 Account of glorious victories, see Relación de las gloriosas victorias 341-3 Account of India and a history of the Mughal Empire, see De remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh 11, 177-9, 184 Account of India and a history of the Mughal Empire, see Remonstrantie (Pelsaert) 180, 182-6 Account of Mughal India, see De remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh 11, 177-9, 184 An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde, see Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde 9, 522-3, 524-9 Account of the entry of some Fathers of the Society of Jesus into China, see Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China 292-6 Account of the island of Brunei, see Relación de la isla de Burney 273, 274-6 Account of the journey to Cape Verde, see Relation du voyage du Cap-Vert 9, 556, 557-60 Account of the mission on the Coast of Guinea, see Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné 5, 574, 574-7 Account of the propagation of the faith of the Kingdom of China, see Relação da propagação da fé no reyno da China 352-5 Account of the twelve Apostles, see Dāstān-i aḥwāl-i ḥawāriyān 135 Ādāb al-salṭanat 85, 109 Agiologio Lusitano 205 Aḥwāl-i Farangistān, see Samra al-falāsifa 134-5 Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā, see Fuente (o Libro) de vida 85, 87-91, 116-17, 220 Āʿīn-i Akbarī 93, 94-6 ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt 234 Akbar, Book of, see Akbarnāma 11, 93, 94-101, 107, 112, 153

Akbar’s farmans concerning PortugueseMughal relations 5, 111-20 Akbar’s letter to Philip II of Spain 105-11 Akbarnāma 11, 93, 94-101, 107, 112, 153 The Algerine captive 57 Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn 373-6, 423 The Ambonese wars of Arnold de Vlaming van Ourhoorn, see Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn 373-6, 423 Amoenitates exoticae 198 Annual report of the things done by the fathers of the Society of Jesus in India and Japan, see Relaçam annual das coisas que fizeram os padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas missões na India e Japão 215-17, 495 Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-taʾwīl 415 Apart from the West, see Ju xi ji 383, 384, 385, 385-6, 387 Apocalypsis Apocalypseos. Id est, Apocalypsis D. Ioannis analysi et scholiis illustrate 565 Apologia contra Fr. Luiz de Urreta da Ordem dos Pregadores sobre o que escrevera do Imperio da Etiopia  548 Apologia pro Christiana religione 117 Aromatum historia 197 Asia Portuguesa 549 The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest, see Astronomia Europaea sub Imperatore Tartaro Sinico Cam Hy 429-31 Astronomia Europaea sub Imperatore Tartaro Sinico Cam Hy 429-31 The attainment of joy through embroidering on the Dībāj, see Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭrīz al-Dībāj 482 Auuisi della missione del regno del gran Mogor 447-9 Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī 470, 471-5 Bayān-i īmān-i ʿisaviyān 86



Index of Titles

Beschryvinge [. . .] van het gout koninckrijk van Gunea 191 Beschryvinghe van de gantsche custe van Guinea, Manicongo, Angola 74 The bloudy tenant, washed and made white in the bloud of the lambe 562 The Book and slavery are irreconcilable 65 Book of Akbar, see Akbarnāma 11, 93, 94-101, 107, 112, 153 Book of the fixed stars, see Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib 232 Bran-Haymanot 586, 588 Breve recopilação do poder e autoridade que tem os confessores mendicantes assim súditos como prelados por virtude dos seus privilégios 201 Breve relação dos reinos de Pegu, Arracão, Brama e dos impérios Calaminhã, Siammon e Grão Mogol, see Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique 208-10 Breve relación de la grande crueldad de Gentiles y Moros 339 Brief account of the experiences of Frederick de Houtman in Aceh during the 26 months of his captivity, see Cort verhael vant gene wedervaren is Frederick de Houtman tot Atchein int eylandt Sumatra 10, 25, 324-6 Brief account of the great cruelty of the Gentiles and Moors, see Breve relación de la grande crueldad de Gentiles y Moros 339 Brief treatise on the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde, see Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde 476, 477-80 Bu de yi 383, 384, 385, 386-9, 394 Bu de yi bian (Buglio) 384, 388, 393, 394-6, 397, 398, 399, 426 Bu de yi bian (Verbiest) 394, 426 Bustān al-salaṭīn 356, 361 A call to rectify the country, see Zheng guo ti cheng gao 384-5, 385, 387 Cambridge MS Or. Ii.6.45: Commentary on the Qur’an Chapter of the Cave, see Tafsīr Sūrat al-Kahf 277-9 Captain Canot or, Twenty years of an African slaver 34 Carta al P. Sebastián Rodriguez 451 Carta del Doctor Francisco de Sande 273 Carta del Padre Marcelo Francisco Mastrillo 341

633

Carta do Emperador de Ethiopia pera sua Santidade de 26 de junho do anno de 1604 490-1 The cause of Christianity, see Tian zhu jiao yuan you 393, 395, 397, 398, 399 Ce yan ji lue, see Qin ding xin li ce yan ji lue 425-6 The Christian expedition to China of the Society of Jesus, see De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas svscepta, ab Societate Iesv 314-20 De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas svscepta, ab Societate Iesv 314-20 Christianity, Islam and the Negro race  64 Chronica da Companhia de Jesu, na provincia de Portugal 592 Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia 12, 539-41 Chronicle of Akbar, see Akbarnāma 11, 93, 94-101, 107, 112, 153 Chronicle of Mughal India 180 Chronicles of Kilwa 38 Chronicles of Lamu 38 Chronicles of Pate 38 Chronicles of south Sulawesi, see Lontara Bilang 617 Chronicles of Susənyos, King of Ethiopia, see Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia 12, 539-41 Ci xian wen da 426 Clavis prophetarum 602 Commentary on the Chapter of the Cave, see Tafsīr Sūrat al-Kahf 277-9 Conquista espiritual do Oriente 5, 6, 9, 13, 202, 203-6 Conquista temporal e espiritual de Ceylão 205 Coordenadas e anotadas por J. Lucio de Azevedo 6 Copia d’una breve relatione della Christianità di Giappone, del mese di marzo del M.D. XCVIII 447-8 Cort verhael vant gene wedervaren is Frederick de Houtman tot Atchein int eylandt Sumatra  10, 25, 324-6 Critica sacra 212 The crown of kings, see Tāj al-salaṭīn 7, 8, 287-90 Cuentase el milagro que San Francisco Xavier Apostol de la India 341 Da xi Xitai Li xian sheng xing ji 449 Dābistān-i mazāhib 117, 154

634

Index of Titles

Dagh-register van ‘tgene hier in Batavia ‘tsedert Primo January 1624  235, 461-6 Daily account of what has taken place here in Batavia since 1 January 1624, see Dagh-register van ‘tgene hier in Batavia ‘tsedert Primo January 1624 235, 461-6 Dāstān-i aḥwāl-i ḥawāriyān 135 Dāstān-i davāzdah havāriyān talāmīdān-i ḥadrat-i ʿĪsā 85 Dastān-i haḍrat-i ʿĪsā, see Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Dāstān-i Masīḥ, Historia Christi Persice conscripta, see Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Defence before the tribunal of the Holy Office, see Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício 9, 602, 603, 604, 608-10 Defesa perante o tribunal do Santo Ofício 9, 602, 603, 604, 608-10 Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde 9, 522-3, 524-9 Descrição Memorial, see Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde 9, 522-3, 524-9 Descripção geografica da quella parte da Africa, chamada Guiné, see Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa 12, 499, 501-3 Description of the entire coast of Guinea, Manicongo, Angola, see Beschryvinghe van de gantsche custe van Guinea, Manicongo, Angola 74 Discoers aan de E. Heeren Bewinthebberen touscherende den Nederlantsch Indischen staet 308-12 Discurso sobre o progresso dos Gelandeses entrados novamente na Índia 172, 173 Discursos sobre a Reformação da justiça da Comarca da Beira e antre Douro e Minho 171, 173 Divers voyages et missions du P. Alexandre de Rhodes 450 Documenta Malucensia 5, 8, 418-24 Esperanças de Portugal Portugal, quinto Império do mundo 603, 605-6, 606, 607 The essence of the mysteries, see Zubdat al-asrār 619-22 Essential exposition and clarification on the visionary experience of the dying and what gladdens him, see Lubb al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-mā yarāhu al-muḥtaḍar bi-l-ʿiyān 8, 412-4 Essential meaning of Christianity, see Zhu jiao yao zhi 393, 398-9

Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa 12, 499, 501-3 Ethiopia Minor and a geographical account of the Province of Sierra Leone, see Ethiópia Menor e descripçao géografica da Província da Serra Leoa 12, 499, 501-3 Ethiopian expedition, see Expeditio Aethiopica 586, 587-91 European astronomy under the rule of the Tartar-Chinese Kangxi emperor, see Astronomia Europaea sub Imperatore Tartaro Sinico Cam Hy 429-31 Exemplum epistolae F. Francisci de Castro sacerdotis Societatis Jesu, ad P. Laurentium Xara ex hispanica lingua in latinam conversae 449 Expeditio Aethiopica 586, 587-91 Explanation of the faith of the Christians, see Bayān-i īmān-i ʿIsaviyān 86 The exposition and explanation concerning the varieties of transported black Africans, see Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd 8, 33, 482, 482-7 An exposition on the understanding of the religions, see Tibyān fī maʿrifat al-adyān 360-3 Farmans (Akbar) 111-20 Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya 10, 248, 249-55 Al-fatāwā l-Hindiyya, see Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya 10, 248, 249-55 Fatḥ al-mubīn li-muḥibb al-Muslimīn al-Sāmirī ṣāḥib Kālikūt 129, 131-3 Firishta’s history, see Tārīkh-i Firishta 122-8 fixed stars, Book of the, see Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib 232 Fragmentum 197 The fruit of philosophy, see Samra al-falāsifa 134-5 Fuente (o Libro) de vida 85, 87-91, 116-17, 220 The fundamentals of Christianity, see Zhu jiao yao zhi 393, 398-9 Al-futūḥāt al-ʿUthmāniyya li-l-aqṭār al-Yamāniyya, see Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī 470, 471-5 The golden trade: or, A discovery of the River Gambra 12, 517, 518-21 Grammar and dictionary of the Malay and Malagasy languages with many Arab and Turkish words, see Spraeck ende woord-boek inde Maleysche ende



Index of Titles

Madagaskarsche talen met vele Arabische ende Turcsche woorden 10, 326-8 Gran comedia de la toma del pueblo de Corralat y conquista del Cerro 342 Grand comedy of the capture of Corralat’s town and the conquest of the hill, see Gran comedia de la toma del pueblo de Corralat y conquista del Cerro 342 Gulshān-i Ibrāhīmī, see Tārīkh-i Firishta 122-8 Ḥadīqat al-naẓar wa-bahjat al-fikar fī ʿajāʾib al-safar, see Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84 Ḥadīqat al-salāṭīn 231 Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes 162, 164, 259-61, 293, 314, 334, 506, 518 Hidāya 250 The highlands of Aethiopia 40 Hikayat Aceh 299 Hikayat Hang Tuah 406 Hikayat Prang Kompeni 406 Hikayat Prang Sabi 406 Hikayat tanah Hitu 7, 26, 368, 369-71, 423 Histoire des choses plus memorables advenues tant ez Indes Orientales  216-17, 495 Histoire de la derniere revolution des états du Grand Mogol, see Voyages de François Bernier 11, 179, 239, 242-7 Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon 335 Histoire générale des isles de S. Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique et autres dans l’Amérique 59 L’histoire du Toubenan 611, 612-16 Historia (Rodriguez) 273 Historia Christi Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate 85, 212, 218-19 Historia da Etiópia (Páez) 490, 510, 511-16, 571 História da Etiópia a alta, ou Abassia (de Almeida) 569-72 Historia de la vida del P. Francisco Javier 531 Historia de las missiones que han hecho los religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus para predicar el Sancto Evangelio en la India Oriental y en los Reynos de la China y Japon 214, 217 Historia de Mindanao y Joló 5, 391-2 História do futuro 602, 603, 605, 606-8

635

História geral de Etiópia a Alta ou Preste Ioam 9, 515, 592, 593-600 Historia naturalis (Pliny) 195 Historia S. Petri Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate 212, 218-19 Historia serafica da ordem dos frades menores 205 Historia y relacion escrita por el P. Fr. Jamie Tarín 451 Historica narratio, de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses, ac praesertim in Regia Pequinensi 378, 379-80 Historical narration of the beginning and progress of the missions of the Society of Jesus among the Chinese, and especially at the royal court of Peking, see Historica narratio, de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses 378, 379-80 Historie van Hitu, see Hikayat tanah Hitu 7, 26, 368, 369-71, 423 History of Christ written in Persian, though in many ways contaminated, see Historia Christi Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate 85, 212, 218-19 History of Ethiopia, see Historia da Etiópia (Páez) 490, 510, 511-16, 571 History of Ethiopia, see Historia da Etiópia a alta, ou Abassia (de Almeida)  569-72 History of Europe, see Samra al-falāsifa 134-5 History of Mindanao and Jolo, see Historia de Mindanao y Joló 5, 391-2 History of St. Peter written in Persian, though in many ways contaminated, see Historia S. Petri Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminate 212, 218-19 History of the future, see História do futuro 602, 603, 605, 606-8 History of the land of Hitu, see Hikayat tanah Hitu 7, 26, 368, 369-71, 423 The history of the late revolution of the empire of the Great Mogol, see Voyages de François Bernier 11, 179, 239, 242-7 History of the missions undertaken by the religious of the Society of Jesus to preach the Holy Gospel in the East Indies and Kingdoms of China and Japan, see Historia de las missiones que han hecho los religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus para predicar el Sancto Evangelio en la

636

Index of Titles

India Oriental y en los Reynos de la China y Japon 214, 217 History of the most memorable occurrences in the East Indies, see Histoire des choses plus memorables advenues tant ez Indes Orientales 216-17, 495 History of the rise of the Mahomedan power in India, see Tārīkh-i Firishta 122-8 History of the Society of Jesus, see Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù dell’Italia 217 The history of Toubenan, see L’histoire du Toubenan 611, 612-16 A history of Upper Ethiopia, or Prester John, see História geral de Etiópia a Alta ou Preste Ioam 9, 515, 592, 593-600 Hopes for Portugal, the Fifth Empire of the world, see Esperanças de Portugal Portugal, quinto Império do mundo 603, 605-6, 606, 607 How to restore the salvation of the blacks, see De instauranda Aethiopum salute 531, 532-7 Ḥujjat al-ṣiddīq li-dafʿ al-zindīq 358-60, 361 Humāyūn Pādishāh 135 I can no longer stand it, see Bu de yi 383, 384, 385, 386-9, 394 I cannot do otherwise, see Bu de yi 383, 384, 385, 386-9, 394 ‘I cannot do otherwise’ refuted, see Bu de yi bian 384, 388, 393, 394-6, 397, 398, 399, 426 I could not do otherwise, see Bu de yi 383, 384, 385, 386-9, 394 I no longer support it, see Bu de yi 383, 384, 385, 386-9, 394 Iaponica, Sinensia, Mogorana 448 Al-iʿlām bi-aʿlām bayt (or balad) Allāh al-ḥarām 470 Imperio de la China, see Relação da propagação da fé no reyno da China 352-5 De Imperio Magni Mogolis 10, 177, 196-200 Innocentia victrix, sive Sententia comitiorum Imperij Sinici 432, 436 De instauranda Aethiopum salute 531, 532-7 The institutions of Akbar, see Āʿīn-i Akbarī 93, 94-6 The interpreter of the Beneficial, see Tarjumān al-Mustafīd 278, 415-17 Intikhāb-i ʿaqāʾid-i dīn ʿIsaviyān 86 Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù dell’Italia 217

Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique 208-10 El itinerario de las misiones orientales, see Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique 208-10 Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien (van Linschoten) 75-8 Jahāngīrnāma 135, 136 Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh 151 Jan Huighen van Linschoten his discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies, see Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien 75-8 Jesuit Makasar documents 5, 8, 418-24 Jesuit reports on India in the 17th century 214-22 Jesuits and Muslims in 17th-century China 433-41 Jesuits and other Roman Catholic orders in 17th-century China: Literature on Muslims and Islam 447-60 The Jesuits in 17th-century Japan 333-8 Jiao kuan wie lun 436 Jin cheng shu xiang 387 Jing yu 385, 387 Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro . . . fez 344, 344-7 Journaal der reis van den gezant Joan Cunaeus naar Perzië 365-7 Journael ofte Dagh-register van de tweede Schipvaert op Oost-Indien 282-6 The Journal of Sir Thomas Roe 164-70 A journal, of the captivity and sufferings of John Foss 56 Journal of the second voyage to the East Indies, see Journael ofte Dagh-register van de tweede Schipvaert op Oost-Indien 282-6 Journal of Walter Peyton, voyage to East India, and return 10, 505-7 Journey of Francisco de Souza de Castro, see Jornada que Francisco de Souza de Castro . . . fez 344, 344-7 Ju xi ji 383, 384, 385, 385-6, 387 Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāf majlūb al-Sūdān, see Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd 8, 33, 482, 482-7 Kitāb al-tadhkira bi-umūr al-ākhira 8, 412 Kitāb al-tamḥīd 361 Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib 232



Index of Titles

Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe 184, 189-94, 234 Kun yu wan guo quan tu 301, 434 The ladder of ascent towards grasping the law concerning transported black Africans, see Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd 8, 33, 482, 482-7 Legal opinions of the time of Aurangzeb, see Al-fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīriyya 10, 248, 249-55 Letter from Fr Marcelo Francisco Mastrillo, see Carta del Padre Marcelo Francisco Mastrillo 341 Letter from the Emperor of Ethiopia to his Holiness, of 26 June 1604, see Carta do Emperador de Ethiopia pera sua Santidade 490-1 A letter of father Diego de Pantoja, see Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China 292-6 Letters (Afonso Mendes) 587-91 Letters and reports (Matteo Ricci) 304-5 Letters and reports 1604-12 (Baltasar Barreira) 5, 493, 494-8 Letters and reports of Luis Mariano SJ, 1616-30 544-6 Un libertin dans l’Inde moghole, see Voyages de François Bernier 11, 179, 239, 242-7 Life and achievements of Matias de Albuquerque, see Vida e Acções de Matias de Albuquerque, Capitão e Viso-Rei da Índia 80-3 The life and work of the Apostles, see Dāstān-i aḥwāl-i ḥawāriyān 135 The life of Jesus, see Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Light of faith, see Bran-Haymanot 586, 588 Lightning over Yemen. A history of the Ottoman campaign 1569-71, see Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī 470, 471-5 Litterae P. Jacobi Pantogiae e Societate Jesu, see Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China 292-6 Lubāb al-taʾwīl fī maʿānī al-tanzīl 278 Lubb al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-mā yarāhu al-muḥtaḍar bi-l-ʿiyān 8, 412-14 Maʿālim al-tanzīl 278 Majālis-i Jahāngīrī 7, 134, 135, 136-40

637

The manifest victory of the Zamorin of Calicut, see Fatḥ al-mubīn li-muḥibb al-Muslimīn al-Sāmirī ṣāḥib Kālikūt 129, 131-3 Manners and duties of sovereignty, see Ādāb al-salṭanat 85, 109 Mappa mundi, see Kun yu wan guo quan tu 301, 434 Mémoire sur l’établissement du commerce dans les Indes 239 Memorandum to the noble governors about the condition of the Dutch Indies, see Discoers aan de E. Heeren Bewinthebberen touscherende den Nederlantsch Indischen staet 308-12 Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāf majlūb al-Sūdān, see Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd 8, 33, 482, 482-7 Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd ilā nayl ḥukm mujallab al-Sūd 8, 33, 482, 482-7 Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Mirʾāt al-quds yaʿnī dāstān-i ʿĪsā, see Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Mirror of holiness and history of the Messiah, see Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Mirror of the holy, that is stories of the Lord Jesus, see Mirʾāt al-quds aw dāstān-i Masīḥ 85, 116, 134, 135, 218 Misqal-i safā dar tajliyya-i Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā 90, 117 Mission to the Great Mughal of Father Rudolph Aquaviva, see Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù 217-19 Missionary journey to eastern India made by Fr Sebastian Manrique, see Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique 208-10 Missione al gran Mogor del Padre Ridolfo Aquaviva della Compania de Gesù 217-19 The Mombasa rising 1631 from sworn evidence, see Processus martyrum de Mombassa 41, 204, 551-5 Mr Thomas Coriat to his friends in England sendeth greeting from Agra 261-3 Muntakhab al-tawārīkh 90, 93, 97, 107, 121, 151, 153-60

638

Index of Titles

Najāt al-Rashīd 152, 157 Narratio breuis rerum a Societate in Regno magni Mogor gestarum, see Auuisi della missione del regno del gran Mogor 447-9 The natural, the sacred and the profane customs and the rites, discipline and evangelical catechism of all Ethiopians, see De instauranda Aethiopum salute 531, 532-7 Naturaleza, policía sagrada i profana, costumbres i ritos, disciplina i catecismo evangélico de todos Etíopes, see De instauranda Aethiopum salute  531, 532-7 Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭrīz al-Dībāj 482 Nie jing 385, 387 Night assemblies at the court of Nūr al-dīn Jahāngīr, see Majālis-i Jahāngīrī 7, 134, 135, 136-40 Notícias recônditas do modo de proceder da Inquisição com os seus presos 602 On exposing heterodoxy, see Pi xie lun 383-4, 385, 387, 394 On refuting heresy, see Pi xie lun 383-4, 385, 387, 394 On the empire of the Great Mughal, or a commentary on the true India: compiled from various authorities 10, 177, 196-200 Oost-Indise spiegel 443 De open-deure tot het verborgen heydendom 10 Open door to the hidden heathendom, see De open-deure tot het verborgen heydendom 10 De l’origine des nègres du Sénégal coste d’affrique, de leur pays, relligion, coutumes et moeurs 611, 612 Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën 281, 323 Peregrinaçam de Fernam Mendez Pinto 334-5 Periplus of the Erythraean sea 37 Pi xie lun 383-4, 385, 387, 394 A plea to rectify the country, see Zheng guo ti cheng gao 384-5, 385, 387 The polisher to cleanse the impurities of The truth-showing mirror, see Misqal-i safā dar tajliyya-i Āʾīna-i ḥaqq numā 90, 117 The powring ovt of the seven vials: or an exposition, of the sixteenth chapter of the Revelation, with an application of it to our time 564-7 Principal navigations 258

Processus martyrum de Mombassa 41, 204, 551-5 De procurande Indorum salute 533 The proof of the truthful in refuting the heretic, see Ḥujjat al-ṣiddīq li-dafʿ al-zindīq 358-60, 361 Purchas his pilgrimes, see also Hakluytus Posthumus 162, 164, 259-61, 293, 314, 334, 506, 518 The purpose of Christianity, see Tian zhu jiao yuan you 393, 395, 397, 398, 399 Qian kun ti yi 301 Qin ding xin li ce yan ji lue 425-6 Qing zhen da xue 348 Qing zhu xie jiao zhuang 387 The real commentary on the true teaching, see Zheng jiao zhen quan 349-50 De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores 449 Recentissima de Amplissimo Regno Chinae. Item de statu rei Christianae apud magnum regem Mogor 448 Record of the journey of the envoy Joan Cunaeus to Persia, see Journaal der reis van den gezant Joan Cunaeus naar Perzië 365-7 Reformação da milícia e governo do Estado da Índia oriental 171, 172-4 Reformation of the military and government of the Estado da Índia, see Reformação da milícia e governo do Estado da Índia oriental 171, 172-4 A refutation of ‘I cannot do otherwise’, see Bu de yi bian 384, 388, 393, 394-6, 397, 398, 399, 426 Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff 443-5 Reject the West. A collection, see Ju xi ji 383, 384, 385, 385-6, 387 Relaçam annual das coisas que fizeram os padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas missões na India e Japão 215-17, 495 Relação da missão da Costa da Guiné 5, 574, 574-7 Relação da propagação da fé no reyno da China 352-5 Relação das festas quando se jurou o Mistério da Conceição da Senhora na Índia em 1647 344 A relação de André de Faro sobre as missões na Guiné 574 Relação defensiva dos filhos da India Oriental 201



Index of Titles

Relação do Bautismo Geral em Goa em 1648 344 Relación de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Iesús en la China 292-6 Relación de la isla de Burney 273, 274-6 Relación de las gloriosas victorias 341-3 Relacion de mi nacimiento y vida hasta el dia y año presente de 1690 451 Relation abrégée des missions et voyages des Evêques françois envoyez aux royaumes de la Chine, Cochinchine, Toquin et Siam 451 Relation du voyage du Cap-Vert 9, 556, 557-60 Relatione dell’anno 1619 (Diaz) 450 Relatione delle cose più notabili scritte ne gli anni 1619, 1620 e 1621 dalla Cina 450 Relations de divers voyages curieux 238-9 De remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh 11, 177-9, 184 Remonstratie (Pelsaert) 180, 182-6 Remonstrative letter (or apology) by W. Geleynssen de Jongh, see De remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh 11, 177-9, 184 Reports by British travellers 257-68 Revelation, Book of 561, 564-5, 609 Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten 74 The rhymed chronicle of the Makassar War, see Sya’ir perang Mengkasar 7, 26, 400, 401, 402-10 The second voyage of Captain Walter Peyton to India, see Journal of Walter Peyton, voyage to East India, and return 10, 505-7 Selection of chronicles, see Muntakhab al-tawārīkh 90, 93, 97, 107, 121, 151, 153-60 Separate from the West, see Ju xi ji 383, 384, 385, 385-6, 387 Sheng jiao jian yao 398 Shengjiao yaozhi, see Zhu jiao yao zhi 393, 398-9 Short history, or journal-like notes, see Korte historiael ende journaelsche aenteyckeninghe 184, 189-94, 234 Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84 Sīrat al-Ḥaymī, see Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84 Sīrat al-qāḍī Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan fī dukhūlih arḍ al-Ḥabasha, see Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84

639

Sya’ir perang Mengkasar 7, 26, 400, 401, 402-10 Sommaire des diuers voyages et missions apostoliques du R.P. Alexandre de Rhodes 450 Source (or Book) of life, see Fuente (o Libro) de vida 85, 87-91, 116-17, 220 Spiritual conquest of the Orient, see Conquista espiritual do Oriente 5, 6, 9, 13, 202, 203-6 Spraeck ende woord-boek inde Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche talen met vele Arabische ende Turcsche woorden 10, 326-8 Stories of the Twelve Apostles, the disciples of the Lord Jesus, see Dāstān-i davāzdah havāriyān talāmīdān-i ḥadrat-i ʿĪsā  85 The story of the miracle performed by St Francis Xavier, see Cuentase el milagro que San Francisco Xavier Apostol de la India 341 A summary of Christianity, see Zhu jiao yao zhi 393, 398-9 Summary of the beliefs of the religion of the Christians, see Intikhāb-i ʿaqāʾid-i dīn ʿisaviyān 86 ṣuwar al-kawākib, Kitāb 232 Sya’ir perang Mengkasar 7, 26, 400, 401, 402-10 Tabaqāt-i Akbarī 121, 151, 153 al-tadhkira bi-umūr al-ākhira, Kitāb 8, 412 Tafsīr Sūrat al-Kahf 277-9 Tāj al-salaṭīn 7, 8, 287-90 al-tamḥīd, Kitāb 361 Ṭaraf al-akhbār min natāʾij al-asfār, see Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84 Taʾrīkh al-Ḥabasha, see Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84 Tāʾrīkh al-Madīna 470 Tarīkh-e Balʿamī 138 Tārīkh-i alfī 151 Tārīkh-i Badāʾūnī, see Muntakhab al-tawārīkh 90, 93, 97, 107, 121, 151, 153-60 Tārīkh-i Firishta 122-8 Tāʾrīkh-i Nawras-nāma, see Tārīkh-i Firishta 122-8 Tarjumān al-Mustafīd 278, 415-17 Thomas Coriate, traueller for the English vvits: greeting from the court of the Great Mogul 261-3

640

Index of Titles

Three historical-geographical treatises, see Tractatus tres historico-geographici  548, 548-50 Three letters to the VOC Governor General in Batavia 232, 235-7 Tian xue chuan gai 385, 386-7, 394 Tian zhu jiang sheng 395, 398 Tian zhu jiang sheng chu xiang jing jie 449 Tian zhu jiao yuan you 393, 395, 397, 398, 399 Tian zhu jiao yue zheng 395 Tian zhu shi yi 304 Tian zhu zheng jiao yue zheng 398-9 Tibyān fī maʿrifat al-adyān 360-3 Tractatus tres historico-geographici 548, 548-50 Tratado breve dos Rios da Guiné do Cabo Verde 476, 477-80 Tratado dos deuses gentilicios de todo o Oriente, e dos ritos e ceremonias que uzão os Malabares 548 Tratados históricos, políticos, éticos y religiosos de la monarquia de China 451 Travel notes of Portuguese navigation into the Orient, see Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten 74 Travels in the Mogul Empire, by Francis Bernier, see Voyages de François Bernier 11, 179, 239, 242-7 The travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique (1629-1643), see Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental que hizo el P. Maestro Fra Sebastian Manrique 208-10 The travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia 263-5 Travels to Nubia 42 Travels, see Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff 443-5 Troisiesme partie de l’histoire des choses plus memorables 495 The true explanation of the orthodox teaching, see Zheng jiao zhen quan 349-50 True report (Van Neck) 282 The truth-showing mirror, see Āʾīnā-i haqq numā 85, 87-91, 116-17, 220 The truth-showing mirror, see Fuente (o Libro) de vida 85, 87-91, 116-17, 220 Tuḥfat al-mujāhidīn 131 Tuzuk-i Jahāngīrī, see Jahāngīrnāma 135, 136

Verbondt ende vast accoordt 328-31 Vida e Acções de Matias de Albuquerque 80-3 VOC treaties with Muslim rulers of Indonesia, see Verbondt ende vast accoordt 328-31 Voyage dans les états du Grand Mogol, see Voyages de François Bernier 11, 179, 239, 242-7 Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval 143-9 Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie entrepris pour découvrir un nouveau chemin à la Chine 452-3 The voyage of François Pyrard of Laval, see Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval 143-9 A voyage to East India (Terry) 8, 10, 223, 223-30 The voyages and works of John Davis the navigator 298-300 Voyages de François Bernier 11, 179, 239, 242-7 Wang tui ji xiong bian 426 Wang ze bian 426 Wang zhan bian 426 Waqāʾiʿ ḥawāriyān dawāzda-gāna, see Dāstān-i aḥwāl-i ḥawāriyān 135 What led to the discovery of the source of the Nile 43 Wonders of creation, see ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt 234 Xi chao ding an 426 Xi fang yao ji, see Yu lan xi fang yao ji 426 Xi guo ji fa 449 Xi zhen zheng da 348 Xin zhi yi xiang tu 429 Xuan ze yi 385, 387 Yemeni lightning, on the Ottoman conquest, see Al-barq al-Yamānī fī l-fatḥ al-ʿUthmānī 470, 471-5 A Yemenite embassy to Ethiopia, see Sīrat al-Ḥabasha 4, 578, 579-84 Yu di shan hai quan tu 434 Yu lan xi fang yao ji 426 Zhe miu lun 385, 387 Zheng guo ti cheng gao 384-5, 385, 387 Zheng jiao zhen quan 349-50 Zhi fang wai ji 449 Zhongguo chu ren bian 394-5 Zhu jiao yao zhi 393, 398-9 Zubdat al-asrār 619-22