Preliminary norms of Arabic to Spanish translations produced by twentieth-century academics

Abstract

This article analyzes the preliminary norms (Toury 1995) governing the translation of Arabic works into Spanish produced by members of Spain’s academic community in the twentieth century. In particular, we study the ideological motives and objectives behind the choice of works to be translated. Translation was the ideological tool par excellence of Spanish Arabism. The Catholic Church; Spanish state, regional, and local government bodies; and the European Cultural Foundation were the principal patrons. The works translated served to endorse the pre-eminence of Christendom over Islam and to advance Spanish nation-building. They also contributed to the encouragement of emancipatory and feminist discourses, the commercial success of the Arab winner of the Nobel Prize, Najīb Maḥfūẓ, and the promulgation among the European public of a discourse opposed to the ‘clash of civilizations’. Thus, our analysis illustrates the capacity of translation to generate ideology in a specific socio-political context.