European language knowledge among Muslims shifted from despised to indispensable

Evidence

The first major change affecting Muslim perceptions of the West was in the channels and media of communication. Where previously Muslim visitors to Europe, even in the age of Ottoman retreat, had been few and far between, they now became frequent and numerous. From the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottomans and later other Muslim states established resident diplomatic mis­ sions in European capitals, thus bringing into being a whole group of govern­ ment officials with direct knowledge of a European country and, increasingly, of a European language. This last was of special significance. Whereas previously Muslims had had to rely almost entirely on non-Muslims or new converts to Islam for interpretation and translation, there now emerged—at first slowly and reluctantly, then with rapidly gathering momentum—a new e´lite of native Mus­ lims with a command of at least one European language. Such knowledge, pre­ viously despised, became tolerable, then useful, and finally indispensable. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1090

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of how imperial contact reorganizes indigenous elites’ knowledge hierarchies — parallels Bourdieu’s cultural capital and postcolonial theory on the colonial middleman class.