Anselm Turmeda


Anselm Turmeda, later known as Abd Allah at-Tarjuman, was a Christian priest from Mallorca who converted to Islam and settled in Tunis. He is one of the earliest writers to have written in both Arabic and a Latin language. He became a vizier in Hafsid Tunis where he died in 1423 during the reign of Abu Faris Abd al-Aziz II.

Life

Turmeda wrote that he studied and lived in Lleida. When approximately 35, he traveled to Sicily and stayed there for five months, after which he sailed to Tunis during the reign of Abu al-Abbas Ahmad II, where he stayed with some Christian clergymen and traders for four months, during which time he asked to be connected to a Muslim who knows the "language of the Christians", and was introduced to the court physician Yusuf, and announced to him that the reason he came to this land was because he intended to convert to Islam. Yusuf then introduced him to the Hafsid ruler, who inquired about his motives and authorized him to convert and offered him a salaried position.

Works

  • Llibre dels bons amonestaments
Turmeda dates it to April 1398, eleven years after his settlement in Tunis. It consists of 428 poems arranged in three rhyming stanzas followed by a rhyme-free one. Its preface says it was "composed in Tunis by monk Anselm Turmeda, also called Abdalà". The work was very popular in Catalonia, being called franselm.
Written in 1417 in Catalan, no part survived in its original language. Current Catalan editions are available based on a medieval French translation. The Inquisition put it on the Index of prohibited books in 1583, contributing to its disappearance. Both for political and religious reasons, it did not square with the orthodoxy of Catholic Spain in the 16th century. It presents a dispute among a donkey and a friar, arguing about the supremacy of men over animals, each one defending their genre. Finally, men win because Christ was incarnated in a man. The work is, however, very critical towards mankind, in all the aspects: religious, moral, political, etc.
  • Llibre de tres
This book wants to instruct in an amusing way.
  • Tuhfat al-Arib fi al-Radd 'ala ahl al-Salib
The best known of his Arabic books, it is a polemical work against Christianity and affirming the prophethood of Muhammad. It had three editions in Arabic, three in Turkish, and one in Persian in a century.