La Mala Algaraba

Abstract

This study examines Spanish Catholic attitudes towards the Arabic language of Spain’s Islamic communities in the sixteenth century. While many studies have located the origins of language policy in Spain in the 18th century, we analyze the main royal decrees and ecclesiastical legislation that address the Arabic language in an earlier period. We depart from the generally-accepted scholarly notion that in the Spanish Church, there existed two positions regarding the Arabic language: first, that Islamic communities should be approached through the Arabic language and, second, that their language should be prohibited in favour of Castilian. To trouble this framework, we examine the attitudes of two Spanish churchmen regarding the Arabic language, whose complex positions pre-vent them from being readily categorized as advocates or opponents of Arabic.