Paper short abstract:

Arabic translators in Granada after the Castilian conquest transmitted legal, religious, civic, and scholarly knowledge. Over the course of the morisco period, Arabic translation shifted from a local activity of civic administration to the representation of religious unity and royal sovereignty.

Paper long abstract:

Arabic translators in Granada after the Castilian conquest ended in 1492 served as important transmitters of legal, religious, civic, and scholarly knowledge. The first generation of translators was drawn from Jewish, mudéjar, morisco and converso communities with long experience serving as mediators between representatives of different religious and legal regimes. These men, who worked under a chief translator who was also a Castilian nobleman and recent Muslim convert to Christianity, were crucial in transmitting the knowledge and practices of Muslim Granada to Christian Granada. After the ascension of Philip II to the Spanish throne in 1556, official translation in Granada began to encompass more diverse kinds of information. Legal and fiscal documents were still the primary objects of translation in the town council and law courts, but nascent antiquarianism and an interest in Arabic-language scholarly manuscripts meant that the next generation of translators would be culled not from the traditional administrative corps but from the intellectual elites connected to the new university and religious institutions. The most famous translator of morisco Granada was the medical doctor and university graduate Alonso del Castillo. Castillo began his career translating Arabic property deeds in Granada, graduated to military and diplomatic missives, and finally became the Royal Arabic Translator at El Escorial and the principle translator in Granada of the Sacromonte Plomos. Castillo's career embodies this transition in Spanish Arabic translation from a local activity of civil administration to a national enterprise geared toward the representation of religious unity and royal sovereignty.