Title:

Septem Psalmorum poenitentialium Para-Phrasis Arabica id est stylo, & ex Alcorani Systemate quod cxiii capita continet sive ex Cicerone Arabico & Ismaelitica atque Lingua Salomonis regia: puris, merisque Loquutionibus appronatis Rhythmice [marg. add. Cum versione interlineari Latina] In Usum Arabicantium Germanorum: ut ad Alcorani Lectionem Aditus facilior patescat. Diligenti Lectione ac Meditatione a Iohanne Zechendorff LLarum Orientalium Cultore Conscrpita

Short title

An Arabic paraphrase of the Seven Penitential Psalms.

Title variations

Title in English

An Arabic paraphrase of the seven penitential psalms, i.e. in the style of and taken from the system of the Quran, which contains CXIII chapters, or rather from the Arab Cicero and in the Ismaelitic and regal Solomonic language: in pure and unadulterated speech set down rhythmically, with an interlinear Latin translation for the benefit of German students of Arabic, to allow them an easier access to the Qur’an

Section

Language

Arabic

Creation date

Genre

Content

Content table

Formal Expression

Verses

Qur'an quotations

Original

Source

Use (macro-category)

Use (micro-category)

Bibliographical references

Asaph Ben-Tov, “Johann Zechendorff (1580-1662) and Arabic Studies at Zwickau’s Latin School”, in: Jan Loop, Alastair Hamilton, and Charles Burnett (eds.), The Teaching and Learning of Arabic in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2017), pp. 57-92., Ben-Tov, "Johann Zechendirff", in Christian Muslim Relations. vol. 9 Western and Southern Europa (1600-1700), ed. David Thomas and John Chesworth (Leiden, 2017), pp. 850-5.)

Descriptive card

Sometime in the 1630s (the exact year is not specified), Johann Zechendorff composed a "Qur'anic paraphrase" of the seven Penitential Psalms. For each verse of these psalms, he offers a series of Arabic verses imitating the style of the Qur'an which approximate the tenor of the given verse. Ostensibly meant as an exercise in Arabic for his pupils and private, visiting students in Zwickau, this original -- and unusual -- work is predicated on an affinity Zechendirff sensed between the poetic language of the Qur'an and the Psalter. It was composed during a virulent bubonic outbreak in Zwickau during the Thirty Years War. It is at once a clever exercise in Arabic, acquainting his pupils (as Zechendorff argues in the lengthy German introduction to the work) with the language and style if the Qur'an and, at the same time, is a work of Lutheran piety in the face of the hellish misery unleashed by the Thirty Years War. The work is extant in a single manuscript in Zechendorff's hand at Zwickau's Rattschulbibliothek.

Entry author

Asaph Ben Tov