For Lust of Knowing (56 page)

2
. Busbecq,
The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople 1554–1562
, translated by Edward Seymour Forster (Oxford, 1927), p. 112; cf. p. 40.

3
. Thévenot quoted in Alastair Hamilton,
Europe and the Arab World
(Oxford, 1994), p. 82.

4
. Harold Bowen,
British Contributions to Turkish Studies
(London, 1945).

5
. Bernard Lewis, ‘From Babel to Dragomans',
Proceedings of the British Academy
, 101 (1998), pp. 37–54; reprinted in Lewis,
From Babel to Dragomans
, pp. 18–32.

6
. On the Levant Company, see A. C. Wood,
A History of the Levant Company
(London, 1964); John B. Pearson,
A Biographical Sketch of the Chaplains to the Levant Company
(London, 1964); Ralph Davis,
Aleppo and Devonshire Square: English Traders in the Levant in the Eighteenth Century
(London, 1967).

7
. B. B. Misra,
The Central Administration of the East India Company 1773–1834
(Manchester, 1959), pp. 387–400.

8
. On d'Herbelot and the
Bibliothèque orientale
, see Henri Laurens,
Aux Sources de l'orientalisme: La Bibliothèque orientale de Barthélémi d'Herbelot
(Paris, 1978); Ahmad Gunny,
Images of Islam in Eighteenth-Century Writings
(London, 1996), pp. 45–54. On Gibbon's aversion to alphabetical order, Edward Gibbon,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, 3 vols, edited by David Womersley (London, 1994), vol. 3, p. 238n; cf. Peter Burke,
A Social History of Knowledge
(London, 2000), p. 185.

9
. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall
, vol. 3, p. 238n.

10
. Hajji Khalifa,
Bibliographicum et Encyclopaedicum
=
Kashf al-zunun ‘an asami al-kutub wa-al-funun
, edited and translated by Gustav Flugel, 7 vols (London and Leipzig, 1853–8); cf.
Encyclopaedia of Islam
, 2nd edn, s.v. ‘Katib Celebi'; Mohamed Abdel-Halim,
Antoine Galland: sa vie et son oeuvre
(Paris, 1964), pp. 76, 163–5; Gunny,
Images of Islam in Eighteenth-Century Writings
, pp. 44, 47.

11
. On Galland's life and work, see, above all, Abdel-Halim,
Antoine Galland
. See also Georges May,
Les Mille et une nuits d'Antoine Galland
(Paris, 1986); Raymond Schwab,
L'Auteur des Mille et Une Nuits. Vie d' Antoine Galland
(Paris, 1964); Robert Irwin,
The Arabian Nights: A Companion
(Harmondsworth, 1994), pp. 14–19; Gunny,
Images of Islam in Eighteenth-Century Writings
, pp. 37–47; Ulrich Marzolph and Richard Van Leeuwen (eds),
Encyclopaedia of the Arabian Nights
(Santa Barbara, Calif., 2004), vol. 2, pp. 556–60.

12
. Byron Porter Smith,
Islam in English Literature
, 2nd edn (New York, 1975), pp. 79–81; Ahmad Gunny,
Perceptions of Islam in European Writings
(Markfield, Leicestershire, 2004), pp. 62–7.

13
. Smith,
Islam in English Literature
, pp. 102–4; Gunny,
Images of Islam
, pp. 132–62.

14
. On the soporific tenor of scholarship in Oxford, see G. J. Toomer,
Eastern Wisedome and Learning: The Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century England
(Oxford, 1996), pp. 306, 313. For the study of Arabic and Islam there, see P. J. Marshall, ‘Oriental Studies', in L. S. Sutherland and L. G. Mitchell (eds),
The History of the University of Oxford
, vol. 5,
The Eighteenth Century
(Oxford, 1986), pp. 551–63.

15
. Edward Gibbon,
Autobiography
, edited by Lord Sheffield (London, 1907), pp. 36–42. For Gibbon's enthusiasm for Oriental matters, see Smith,
Islam in English Literature
, pp. 114–18; Bernard Lewis, ‘Gibbon on Muhammad', in
Islam and the West
(New York and Oxford), pp. 85–98; D. O. Morgan, ‘Edward Gibbon and the East',
Iran
, 33 (1995), pp. 85–92.

16
. John Sparrow,
Mark Pattison and the Idea of a University
(Cambridge, 1967), p. 67.

17
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
[
ODNB
], edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford, 2004), s.v.; Alastair Hamilton, ‘Western Attitudes to Islam in the Enlightenment',
Middle Eastern Lectures
, 3 (1999), p. 81; Gunny,
Images of Islam
, pp. 81–2, 145–7; Marshall, ‘Oriental Studies', pp. 553, 560.

18
. For the life and works of Ockley, see A. J. Arberry,
Oriental Essays: Portraits of Seven Scholars
(London, 1960), pp. 13–47; P. M. Holt, ‘The Treatment of Arabic History by Prideaux, Ockley and Sale', in Peter Holt,
Studies in the History of the Near East
(London, 1973), pp. 54–7;
ODNB
, s.v.; Paul Hazard,
The European Mind
(London, 1953), p. 32–3; Smith,
Islam in English Literature
, pp. 37, 64–8; P. J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams,
The Great Map of Mankind
(London, 1982), pp. 71–2; Gunny,
Images of Islam
, pp. 57–63; Isaac Disraeli,
The Curiosities of Literature
(London, 1867), pp. 12–13.

19
. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall
, vol. 3, p. 248n.

20
. Ibid., p. 173n. On Sale more generally,
ODNB
, s.v.; Johann Fück,
Die Arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20 Jahrhunderts
(Leipzig, 1955), pp. 104–5; Smith,
Islam in English Literature
, pp. 68–71; Holt, ‘The Treatment of Arabic History', pp. 57–60; Gunny,
Images of Islam
, pp. 134–5; Alastair Hamilton,
Europe and the Arab World: Five Centuries of books by European scholars and travellers from the libraries of the Arcadian Group
(Oxford, 1994), pp. 9–10, 106–7.

21
. On the Russells, see Smith,
Islam in English Literature
, pp. 108–10; Hamilton,
Europe and the Arab World
, p. 132.

22
. Edward William Lane,
Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
, 3rd edn (London, 1842), p. x.

23
. On the life and works of Jones, see Fück,
Die Arabischen Studien
, pp. 129–35; Arberry,
Oriental Essays
, pp. 48–86; Garland Cannon,
The Life and Mind of Oriental Jones
, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1990); R. K. Kaul,
Studies in William Jones: An Interpreter of Oriental Literature
(Simla, 1995); Fatma Moussa Mahmoud,
Sir William Jones and the Romantics
(Cairo, 1962); Alexander Murray (ed.),
Sir William Jones, 1746–1794
(Oxford, 1998); Nigel Leask,
British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire
(Cambridge, 1992); Hans Arsleff,
The Study of Language in England, 1780–1860
(Minneapolis, 1983), pp. 115–61; Marzieh Gail,
Persia and the Victorians
(London, 1952), pp. 13–34; O. P. Kejariwal,
The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past, 1784–1838
(New Delhi, 1988), pp. 27–75; Charles Allen,
The Buddha and the Sahibs: The men who discovered India's lost religion
(London, 2002),
passim
.

24
. William Jones, ‘An Essay on the Poetry of the Eastern Nations',
The Works of Sir William Jones
, edited by Lord Teignmouth (London, 1807), vol. 10, pp. 329–38.

25
. William Jones,
A Grammar of the Persian Language
, 4th edn (London, 1797), p. 126.

26
. Edward Said,
Orientalism
(London, 1978), p. 127; cf. p. 98. But see also Raymond Schwab,
The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East, 1680–1880
, translated by Gene Patterson Black and Viktor Reinking (New York, 1984), p. 41; Marshall and Williams,
The Great Map of Mankind
, p. 136; Allen,
The Buddha and the Sahibs
, p. 63. Jones's announcement of the Indo-Aryan hypothesis appeared in his ‘Third Discourse': see
Works
, vol. 2, pp. 34–6.

27
. Kejariwal,
The Asiatic Society of Bengal
; Leili Anvar, ‘L'Asiatick Society of Bengal',
Qantara
, no. 44 (Summer 2002), pp. 39–42.

28
. Schwab,
The Oriental Renaissance, passim
.

29
. Francesco Venturi, ‘Despotismo Orientale',
Rivista di Studia Islamica
, 72 (1960), pp. 121–4; Schwab,
The Oriental Renaissance, passim
.

30
. Johnson quoted by James Boswell in
Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LLD. 1773
, edited by Frederick E. Pottle and Charles H. Bennett (London, 1963), p. 168.

31
. On Leiden's decline after Golius, see Toomer,
Eastern Wisedome
, pp. 52, 301; J. Brugmann and F. Schröder,
Arabic Studies in the Netherlands
(Leiden, 1979), pp. 20–21.

32
.Fück,
Die Arabischen Studien
, pp. 102–3; Brugman and Schröder,
Arabic Studies
, pp. 23–5; Hamilton, ‘Western Attitudes to Islam in the Enlightenment', pp. 75–7.

33
.Fück,
Die Arabischen Studien
, pp. 124–5; Brugman and Schröder,
Arabic Studies
, pp. 26–7; Toomer,
Eastern Wisedome
, p. 313.

34
.Fück,
Die Arabischen Studien
, pp. 108–24; Toomer,
Eastern Wisedome
, p. 113. On Reiske as a classicist, see Rudolf Pfeiffer,
History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850
(Oxford, 1976), p. 172.

35
. Reiske quoted in I. Y. Kratchkovsky,
Among Arabic Manuscripts: Memories of Libraries and Men
(Leiden, 1953), p. 166.

36
. On the craze for Chinese culture, see Paul Hazard,
The European Mind 1680–1715
, translated by J. Lewis May (Harmondsworth, 1964), pp. 36–40; Charles MacKerras,
Western Images of China
(Hong Kong, 1989), pp. 28–45; Marshall and Williams,
The Great Map
, pp. 20–23, 80–87, 107–10. But on the lack of British scholarly interest in China, see T. H. Barrett,
Singular Listlessness: A Short History of Chinese Books and Scholars
(London, 1989).

37
. On Peter the Great's Cabinet of Curiosities, see Robert K. Massie,
Peter the Great: His Life and World
(London, 1981), pp. 814–15. On cabinets of curiosity more generally see Peter Burke,
A Social History of Knowledge: From
Gutenberg to Diderot
(Cambridge, 2000), p. 106; Alvar González-Palacios,
Objects for a Wunder Kammer
(London, 1981); Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor,
The Origins of Museums: the cabinet of curiosities in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe
(Oxford, 1985); Patrick Mauriès,
Cabinets of Curiosities
(London, 2002). On Peter's interest in Oriental studies, I. J. Kratschkowski [= I. Y. Kratchkovsky],
Die Russische Arabistik: Umrisse ihrer Entwicklung
(Leipzig, 1955), pp. 37–43; Richard N. Frye, ‘Oriental Studies in Russia', in Wayne S. Vucinich (ed.),
Russia and Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples
(Stanford, Calif., 1972), pp. 35–6.

38
. On the expansion of Russia into Asia and Russian Orientalism, Kratschkowski,
Die Russische Arabistik
, pp. 37–66; Kalpan Sahni,
Crucifying the Orient: Russian Orientalism and the Colonization of the Caucasus and Central Asia
(Bangkok, 1997); Frye, ‘Oriental Studies in Russia', pp. 30–51.

39
.Fück,
Die Arabischen Studien
, pp. 119–20; Thorkild Hansen,
Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761–1767
, translated by James and Kathleen McFarlane (London, 1964).

40
. Stig T. Rasmussen, ‘Journeys to Persia and Arabia in the 17th and 18th centuries', in
The Arabian Journey: Danish connections with the Islamic world over a thousand years
(Århus, 1996), pp. 47–54.

41
. Rasmussen, ‘Journeys to Persia and Arabia', pp. 55–7.

42
. Hansen,
Arabia Felix
; Rasmussen, ‘Journeys to Persia and Arabia', pp. 57–64; Hamilton,
Europe and the Arab World
, pp. 140–41.

43
. Henry Laurens,
Les Origines intellectuelles de l'Expédition d'Egypte: l'orientalisme islamisant en France (1698–1798)
(Istanbul and Paris, 1987), pp. 108–12, 116–17.

44
. Laurens,
Les Origines
, pp. 63–5; Jean Gaulmier,
Un grand témoin de la révolution et dé l'Empire: Volney
(Paris, 1959), p. 37.

45
. Nora Crook and Derek Guiton,
Shelley's Venomed Melody
(Cambridge, 1986), p. 99.

46
. Constantin-François de Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney,
Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie pendant les années 1783, 1784 et 1785 suivi de considérations sur la Guerre des Russes et des Turcs
, 2 vols, 5th edn (Paris, 1822); Volney,
Les Ruines, on Méditations sur les révolutions des empires
(Paris, 1791); Gaulmier,
Un grand témoin
; Laurens,
Les Origines
, pp. 67–82, 95–6, 123–9, 176–7. For Volney on ruins, see Daniel Reig,
Homo orientaliste
(Paris, 1988), esp. pp. 43–4; Gaulmier,
Un grand témoin
, pp. 112–28; Albert Hourani, ‘Volney and the Ruins of Empire' in Hourani,
Europe and the Middle East
(London, 1980), pp. 81–6. On ruins more generally and their power to evoke thought, see Rose Macaulay,
The Pleasure of Ruins
(London, 1953); Christopher Woodward,
In Ruins
(London, 2001).