Évariste Lévi-Provençal
Encyclopedia
Évariste Lévi-Provençal was a French medievalist, orientalist, Arabist, and historian of Islam.

Born 4 January 1894 in Constantine
Constantine, Algeria
Constantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the capital of the same-named French département until 1962. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, on the banks of Rhumel river...

, French Algeria
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...

, as Makhlóuf Evariste Levi, his name already revealing Gallicized
Francization
Francization or Gallicization is a process of cultural assimilation that gives a French character to a word, an ethnicity or a person.-French Colonial Empire:-Francization in the World:...

 tendencies in his North-African Jewish family. By the age of nineteen when he published his first paper he had rechristened himself Évariste Lévi-Provençal. He studied at the Lycée in Constantine, and served in the French army during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, being wounded in the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...

 in 1917. He then joined the Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines. He held positions at the University of Algiers
University of Algiers
The University of Algiers Benyoucef Benkhedda is a university located in Algiers, Algeria. It was founded in 1909 and is organized into seven faculties.-History:...

 (1926) and later the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 (1945).

Lévi-Provençal was the founder of the French study of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 and the first director of the Institute of Islamic Studies (Institut d'études islamiques) in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...

. He specialized in the history of al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...

 and the Muslims of Spain. He worked on editing and translating the Arabic sources for the medieval history of Spain, often with Spanish Arabist Emilio García Gómez
Emilio García Gómez
Emilio García Gómez, 1st Count of Alixares was a Spanish Arabist, literary historian and critic, whose talent as a poet enriched his many translations from Arabic.-Life:...

. Throughout his scholarly work, he tended to ignore or underplay Jewish sources and obfuscate his own Jewish origins to avoid French Antisemitism.

Selected works

  • Les Historiens du Chorfa, Essai sur la littérature historique et biographique au Maroc, du XVIe au XXe siècle, (1922)
  • Histoire de l'Espagne musulmane, (1944-1953)
  • Séville musulmane au début du XIIe siècle
  • L'Espagne musulmane au Xe siècle. Institutions et vie sociale (Paris, Maisonneuve & Larose, 1932)

External links

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