Middle East History: Trickster Travels by Natalie Zemon Davis
“Trickster Travels” was written by Natalie Davis, who is a historian of the early modern period. Her main interests are cultural history and social history. She has worked for the period ranging from 15th to 18th centuries, and focused on Europe (Princeton University, history.princeton.edu). She has taught history in many universities including the University of Toronto, Brown University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Princeton University.
Her book “Trickster Travels” was published in 2006, and with the publication of this book, she successfully managed to sustain her name as one of the most interesting historians of the early modern period. This book views Italy, Morocco, Spain, and other areas of North Africa as well as West Africa from the point of view of Leo Africanus' pioneering geography of Africa, i.e. “Description of Africa”. Description of Africa was the first geography that helped in introducing Africa to the readers of Europe after its publication in the year 1550 (Shalev 157). In the book “Trickster Travels”, the author has described how a traveler, diplomat, and Renaissance geographer "Leo Africanus" (al-Hasan al-Wazzan), an early 16th-century North African Muslim, managed to survive as a Christian in Italy after his abduction by Christian pirates. She has speculatively described all the parts of the life of Leo Africanus from his birth to final years in sufficient detail.
The book has nine chapters on the life and scholarly activities of al-Wazzan. First chapter of the book is based primarily on al-Wazzan’s book, Description of Africa. This chapter tells about his life “in the Land of Islam” (Davis 15) before his kidnap to Italy. Chapters 2 through 8 deal with the captivity and delivery of Al-Hasan al-Wazzan to Pope; his conversion to Christianity; his position in European, Italian, and Christian life; and most importantly, his literary work and scholarly activities. Last chapter, i.e. chapter 9 is about “The Return” to Africa (245). Certain chapters of the book “Trickster Travels” such as "Writing in Italy" (88), "Conceiving Africa" (125) and "Translation, Transmission, and Distance" (223) have provided brilliant thoughts and representation about al-Hasan al-Wazzan and his time. However, the book has been written more in the form of a story rather than an analytical history. Therefore, the book may develop some thoughtful questions about identity, knowledge, and “cultural exchange” in the mind of readers.
Al-Hasan al-Wazzan was born to Muslims in Granada (now in Spain) in the year 1492 (Davis ix). He was brought up and studied in Fez, and became an authorized scholar, a faqih. He travelled extensively on various missions as ordered by the Wattasid ruler (sultan) of Fez in Morocco (Shalev 157), i.e. he was a merchant and ambassador throughout Africa, which was a mysterious continent for Europeans at that time. He moved from the Sahara to Timbuktu and Gao in Mali. He travelled across the Land of the Blacks (Sudan). He also visited Egypt at the time of its capture by the Ottomans. His time was among historically important times, when the Protestants were creating problems for the Pope and the Habsburgs were showing a rise. In these changing, diverse, and somewhat violent situations, the author of the book described that al-Hasan al-Wazzan successfully managed to live in numerous worlds, i.e. “A Sixteenth-Century Muslim between Worlds”.
In the year 1518, while coming back from Cairo to Fez, he was captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean Sea, and after abduction, he was considered as a worthy captive and imprisoned by Pope Leo X. Although he had a difficult and unsecure position as an outsider, but he was able to reach a level of scholarly fame that would not be possible in his native land. He spent about a year in the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. In January 1520, he was released and baptized. He accepted Christianity. This acceptance of Christianity, as Davis suggests, was in keeping with taqiyya, which shows hiding someone’s Islamic faith and the simulation of conversion to some other religion, so that he or she could survive among infidels.
Al-Hasan al-Wazzan took the Italian name Giovanni Leone, and lived a European life of scholarship in Rome and later Bologna. He also explained the religion Islam to his bewildered and confused audience. He worked on various projects requiring his skills in Arabic. He transcribed and corrected Arabic manuscripts present in the Vatican library. He worked on Arabic-Hebrew-Latin dictionary, a dissertation on Arabic prosody, a Latin edition of the Quran, and two volumes on well-known people of Arabic and Jewish origin. After the sack of Rome, by the year 1527, he moved back to North Africa, and to his initial culture, language, and faith (Shalev 157). His life after returning to North Africa disappeared from the view of the historians, and his death date is also uncertain.
“Trickster Travels” by Davis has a thematic nature showing the mind make-up of a person in different circumstances, and a fragile and unique position of a Muslim in the Christian Europe. It can be said that travel and captivity are two important themes of the book, and most importantly the author tried to explore the cultural, literary, political, and personal complexities faced by al-Hasan al-Wazzan as a forced convert in a foreign country. Davis shows how a Muslim was able to maintain his integrity while keeping the Christians happy. Davis suggests that al-Hasan al-Wazzan was a devout Muslim and always thought of returning to his native land and practice Islam openly.
Al-Hasan al-Wazzan, who also called himself Yuhanna al-Asad, was symbolically a kind of trickster bird with an ability to swim with fishes. He successfully managed to talk to two audiences at once. With the help of his writings, he presented a down-to-earth Africa to European readers. He noted that Africa was blessed by the civilizing influence of the religion of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). However, later interventions from various editors as well as translators deformed the actual meanings of his writings (Shalev 157).
Davis has written different aspects of the life and time of al-Hasan al-Wazzan on the basis of “conditions” and “speculations” as the gaps in historical records are large and undiscoverable. Although this approach of writing can help in knowing the history in a productive manner but it can also be problematic as most of the points about history come from unfinished works, little evidence, and some indirect references by contemporary writers. Initial chapters of the book, describing the early years, and closing chapters, describing the post-European life of al-Hasan al-Wazzan, were written on the basis of very few facts from history. For example, the author believed that al-Hasan al-Wazzan had a spouse and probably they had children before he was captivated by pirates, and she has also invited the reader to think about the appearance of the house of al-Hasan al-Wazzan on the basis of some indirect references about general practices and living conditions in North African society. On the other hand, the middle chapters of the book dealing with the European life have solid and reliable sources.
With the study of al-Hasan al-Wazzan, the author has explored not only Christendom but also the status of women in Islam and the problems and complications of differences in skin color at the time of al-Hasan al-Wazzan. The author’s description of al-Hasan al-Wazzan’s presence in Cairo is fascinating, but her description of Islamic laws and Muslim religious practices is occasional, often simplistic, and less convincing. Moreover, the source materials for the book comes from the works found in European languages or their translations and this is decreasing the wider significance or appeal of the book. On the whole, the style of the book is easily readable for a nonspecialist due to an artful and crafty literary touch and plain style of writing of Davis.
Works Cited
Davis, N.Z. Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim between Worlds. Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.
Princeton University. "Natalie Zemon Davis". Princeton University., n.d. Web. 12 Jul. 2016 <https://history.princeton.edu/people/natalie-zemon-davis >.
Shalev, Zur. "Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim between Worlds (Review)." Renaissance Quarterly 60.1 (2007): 157-58. Print.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/trickster-travels-by-natalie-zemon-davis-435564.html
http://www.enotes.com/topics/trickster-travels
https://www.buffalolib.org/vufind/Record/1653499/Reviews
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jan/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview9
