Translating Islam. The European understanding of Islam and the influence of dragoman translations on the inter-religious dialogue between Christians and Muslims (1730-1750).

ongoing

The project aims to bring to light the only planned venture financed by a European country to explore Ottoman culture before the development of 19th century orientalism and colonialism. Through the analysis of the French translation of a high-value group of 10 religious-themed Ottoman manuscripts, I aim to contribute to the combat of today’s Islamophobic societal sentiments - still largely conditioned by outdated Christian stereotypes and generally unaware of peaceful Christian-Muslim relations documented in recent scientific studies - by encouraging widespread societal re-education initiatives designed to improve an objective and unprejudiced understanding of Islam. The body of texts, selected from a collection of around 120 translations on various topics (still completely unknown to the scientific community) commissioned in 1730-1750 by the French government to dragomans (the official interpreters of the embassy in Istanbul) and “jeunes de langues” (dragoman apprentices), and conserved at the Parisian Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) since the first half of the 18th century, will be the principal field of inquiry to examine whether, to what extent, and in what way dragoman translations contributed to the spread of such European perceptions of Islam, and eventually impacted the inter-religious relations between Christians and Muslims.