Translations Into Spanish
Those Muslims and Jews who chose to stay in Spain while maintaining their religion had to carry out their non-Christian rituals in secret. Their religious books also had to be kept hidden, and for many years they would use Aljamiado manuscripts, which used the Arabic alphabet for transcribing Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Spanish or Ladino. Aljamiado played a very important role in preserving some of the Moriscos Islamic beliefs and traditions secretly. However, as the years passed they grew increasingly unable to read the original texts, and turned more and more to Spanish translations. Even though many of these translations were destroyed by the Inquisition, some have survived, and bear witness to the laborious task of translating and then copying the religious books by hand. In the year 1606, a Morisco copier of the Koran in Spain made this marginal notation in a mixture of Castilian, Aljamiado and Arabic:
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"Esta eskrito en letra de kristyanos ... rruega y suplica que por estar en dicha letra no lo tengan en menos de lo kes, antes en mucho; porque pues esta asi declarado, esta mas a vista de los muçlimes que saben leer el cristiano y no la letra de los muçlimes. Porque es cierto que dixo el annabî Muhammad que la mejor lengwa era la ke se entendía." Translation of the passage: "It is written in the letters of the Christians: (the writer) begs that on account of being in those letters it not be belittled, but rather respected; because, being set down in this way, it can better be seen by those Muslims who know how to read Christian, but not Muslim, letters. For it is true that the Prophet Muhammad said that the best language was the one that could be understood." |
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Nonetheless the successive Catholic Monarchs were very keen on education, and created many Universities and study centers, where translations took place. Besides the study and translation of philosophical and scientific works from Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and other languages from Europe and the Mediterranean basin, translations were made from literature works and orally transmuted legends and traditions from native languages in the New World.
Read more about this topic: Translations During The Spanish Golden Age
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