Saracen

Saraceno is one of the names with which medieval Christianity generically referred to Arabs or Muslims. The words "Islam" and "Muslim" did not enter European languages until the 17th century, with expressions such as « Mohammed's law», Mohammedans, Ishmaelites, Agarenes, Moors, etc.

Etymology

The etymology of the term is unclear. The DRAE states that the Spanish word “saraceno” derives from the Latin sarracēni, and this from the rabbinical Aramaic sarq[iy]īn, which means “inhabitants of the desert” (from srāq, «desert»). i>), meaning "oriental".

While the DRAE picks up as its first meaning that the Saracens are the natives of Arabia Felix (approximately present-day Yemen, to the southeast of the Arabian peninsula), other sources indicate that the term sarakenoi is what the nomadic tribes of central and northern Arabia were known in Ancient Greece, whom the Romans, established in the province of Arabia Petrea (approximately present-day Jordan), called in Latin sarraceni. In the accounts of the life of Saint Moses of Egypt (II century), it is indicated that «At the request of Mauvia, queen of the Saracens, he was bishop and apostle of that nation»^{[citation needed]}.

Early medieval Christian authors such as Juan Damascene (circa 730) and Isidore of Seville (circa 630) propose an etymology derived from the biblical character Sara, married to Abraham, who had Hagar and her son, Ishmael, banished from whose lineage the Arabs would descend, "empty-handed" (ek tes Sarras kenous).

Classic fonts

The first datatable source for the use of the term is Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia (II century), which names Sarakene for the region between Egypt and Palestine comprising northern Sinai, named after the city of Saraka. Ptolemy also mentions the people of the Sarakenoi, who inhabited northwestern Arabia.

Hippolytus of Rome, the Book of the Laws of the Countries (or Dialogue of Fate, by the Syrian Gnostic Bardaisan or one of his disciples) and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia around the first half of the III century: the Saraceni, the taeni and the Arabs. These taeni, later identified with the Arab Tayyi tribe, were located around the Khaybar oasis, towards the Euphrates, while the saracenoi were located to the north of those. as barbaroi (barbarians).:lowercase">III), as components of different units of the Roman army, distinguishing between Arabs, Liluturaeans and Saracens. The Saracens appear as the heavy cavalry (equites) of Phoenicia and Thamud. In a praeteritio, the enemies defeated by Diocletian in his Syrian desert campaign are described as Saracens. Other military reports from the 4th century (Roman-Sasanian wars) do not mention Arabs, but Saracens involved in battles on both the Persian and Roman sides in places as as far away as Mesopotamia.

The Historia Augusta includes a summary of a letter from Aurelian to the Roman Senate that refers to Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, in these terms: «I must say that such is the fear that this woman inspires in the peoples of the East and also in the Egyptians, that neither the Arabs nor the Saracens nor the Armenians move against it". ="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">VI). The difference between the two sources is that Malalas views the Palmyrans and all the inhabitants of the Syrian desert as Saracens, and not as Arabs, while the Historia Augusta sees the Saracens as distinct from Zenobia's subjects, neither Palmyrans nor Arabs. Ammianus Marcellinus (late IV century), historian of Julian the Apostate, writes that the term Saracens designates the Syrian "desert dwellers", replacing the term arabes scenitae. In post-Ammianus times, the Saracens would be known as desert warriors. popular in both Greek and Latin literature, and over time it became confused with Arabic and even with Assyrian, definitely carrying negative connotations.

The Persian terms for "Saracenic" are tazigan and tayyaye, which Stephen of Byzantium (VI) places in the Lakhmid capital of Al-Hirah.

Eusebius of Caesarea names the Saracens in his Historia Ecclesiastica, when he quotes a letter from Dionysius of Alexandria in which he describes the persecution of Decius: «Many were, on the mountain of Arabia, enslaved by the sarkenoi barbarians". more information, to the army of Pescenio Niger in Egypt that occurred in the year 193.

Medieval French Fonts

In medieval French sources, the term sarrasins has a peculiar application that arises from the Muslim invasion repulsed at the Battle of Poitiers (732) and the fixing of border marks by the Carolingian Empire. In this context, any of the external enemies of the non-Christian religion were imprecisely called Saracens, who were also designated, equally inappropriately, as pagans >. Among them were not only the Muslims of Al-Andalus or Sicily, but also European populations whose peculiar religious-cultural manifestations were interpreted as a return to paganism or resistance to Christianization, such as that of Arpitania, in the Alps. The case of the Basques is even more confusing, since they are explicitly confused with the Muslims of the Ebro valley in the Chanson de Roland (century XI) reflecting the battle of Roncesvalles (778).

Pejorative use in Spanish

The pejorative use in Spanish is reflected in the expression sarracina, which in addition to being a synonym for saracena means "a fight among many, especially when it is confused or tumultuous", or "quarrel or brawl in which there are wounded or dead".