Beyond Orientalism - by Oumelbanine Nina Zhiri Hardcover

About the Book

"This book focuses on Ahmad Ibn Qãasim al-Hajarãi (ca. 1570-ca. 1641), a Morisco who fled Spain where this minority of Muslim origins was persecuted. He led a successful career in North Africa, as a secretary to several Sultans in Morocco, and as a prolific translator and writer. He produced autobiographical texts, and translations between Spanish and Arabic, which attest to the important role he played in the cultural, diplomatic, and scientific connections between Europe and North Africa during the early modern period. This book situates his work within several contexts: the development of early modern Orientalism, the intellectual life of the Maghreb, and the history of technological circulation in the Western Mediterranean"--

Book Synopsis

The first in-depth study of the collaborative intellectual exchange between the European and the Arabic Republics of Letters.

Beyond Orientalism reformulates our understanding of the early modern Mediterranean through the remarkable life and career of Moroccan polymath Ahmad Ibn Qâsim al-Hajarî (ca. 1570-1641). By showing Hajarî's active engagement with some of the most prominent European Orientalists of his time, Oumelbanine Zhiri makes the case for the existence of an Arabic Republic of Letters that operated in parallel to its European counterpart.

A major corrective to the long-held view of Orientalism that accords agency only to Europeans, Beyond Orientalism emphasizes the active role played by Hajarî and other "Orientals" inside and outside of Europe in some of the most significant intellectual movements of the age. Zhiri explores the multiple interactions between these two networks of intellectuals, decentering Europe to reveal how Hajarî worked collaboratively to circulate knowledge among Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

From the Back Cover

"Through the remarkable life and career of the Morisco polymath Ahmad Al-Hajarī, this book makes the case for an Arabo-Islamic Republic of Letters alongside the European one. In doing so, the author reformulates our understanding of intellectual exchange in the early modern Mediterranean."--Sharon Kinoshita, Professor of Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz and co-director of The Mediterranean Seminar.

"The extent to which European Orientalism not only depended heavily on collaboration from Muslim intellectuals but was also matched by Muslim writing about the European world is the theme of Zhiri's important book. Deeply researched and clearly written, this book opens up a new world of endeavor and exchange in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."--Natalie Zemon Davis, author of Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds

About the Author

Oumelbanine Zhiri is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. She has published books and articles on Leo Africanus and François Rabelais and on the cultural history of the connection between Europe and North Africa in the early modern period.