Ottoman intellectual interest in Europe lagged far behind Europe’s interest in Islam

Evidence

Hajji Khalifa wrote in 1655, that is to say, more than one hundred years after Hieronymus Beck von Leopoldsdorf (1525–1596) had brought a manuscript of the early Ottoman anonymous chronicles to Vienna in 1551, as a gift for the Emperor Ferdinand I. This book was translated into German and published in 1567; a fuller version also appeared in a Latin translation with analytical com­ mentary by Johannes Lo¨wenklau (known to scholars by the Latinized form of his name, Leonclavius). … 1655 was also a couple of decades after the establishment of the first chairs of Arabic at Cambridge in 1633 and at Oxford in 1636, much longer after the establishment of chairs in Paris and at the University of Leiden. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 2049 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ottoman curiosity about Christian Europe remained extremely shallow; European scholars were translating Ottoman texts well before any Muslim interest in Europe arose — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 2049

Broader Connections

• European scholars were translating Ottoman texts well before any Muslim interest in Europe arose #corroborates (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 2049