Lull bought a Moorish slave as his Arabic teacher and struck him
Evidence
Lull therefore purchased a Moorish slave, intending that the slave should teach him Arabic. One day Lull received a report that the Moor had been blaspheming against Christ and he therefore struck the Moor several times. The Moor, accustomed as he was in his role as a teacher of Arabic to be treated as a master, became very angry. After biding his time for a few days, he went for Lull with a knife, crying, ‘Now you shall die!’ He succeeded in wounding Lull, before Lull wrested the knife from him. The Moor committed suicide in prison. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 88
Categorization
- DEFINE: Illustrates the odd inequality of scholarly master-slave relations in medieval Arabic study.
- SHARE: A macabre anecdote for anyone into medieval intellectual history or Orientalist biography.