Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 February 26

= February 26 =

The Arabs Surprised by the Franks
I once heard medieval Islamic sources report that the Arabs were surprised by the Franks at the time. They speaek publicly and openly with their women, even with women of other man. This was apparently not at all common in the Middle East at that time and surprised the Muslims in the Holy Land. Can somebody help me to find scource for this? 2A02:8071:60A0:92E0:DB1:B8E0:9138:3D02 (talk) 17:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Some such sources are to be extrapolated from (WHAOE) Islamic views on the crusades. --Askedonty (talk) 19:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * It comes from Kitab al-I'tibar by Usama ibn Munqidh (1095-1188); a translation of the text that describes the Franks is here:
 * The Franks are void of all zeal and jealousy. One of them may be walking along with his wife. He meets another man who takes the wife by the hand and steps aside to converse with her while the husband is standing on one side waiting for his wife to conclude the conversation. If she lingers too long for him, he leaves her alone with the conversant and goes away.
 * He is similarly unimpressed with Western medicine and jurisprudence. Alansplodge (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll nitpick here, which is unfair, because you've basically nailed it. (Sorry, I'm a pedant!) You could choose to read that as complimentary or unimpressed. I would suggest that to my western mind the idea that the Franks were devoid of "jealousy" sounds like a compliment, and I wouldn't be sure from it what he really thought. I appreciate that ibn Munqidh was quite reasonably really unimpressed with a swathe of Frankish behaviours and mores, with a small number of notable exceptions, but on this matter the fact that he's clearly shocked doesn't mean he's necessarily disparaging of it. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 11:25, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You may well be right Dweller, but I took the thrust of his account to be that the Franks were unconcerned about being dishonoured in this way; it would be interesting to know if the original Arabic word carries the negative connotations that "jealousy" has to modern Western readers. However, I'm no Arabist. Alansplodge (talk) 13:56, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So yes now, that's very interesting. Edward William Lane somewhere emphathizes that the word for “evil eye”, in Arabic means simply “envy.” This was in relation with practices, amulets etc,. but it may be important keeping in mind too that the observation comes with a date, in effect the 1830's ( history might be cyclical, who knows, or its sociology or whatever that is. ) --Askedonty (talk) 17:39, 5 March 2024 (UTC)