What others said about Arabic Read in the original
Describing how widely Arabic was written in his day:
“Indeed, from the furthest shores of the extreme West, that is, from the Fortunate Isles (which the Arabs call al-Khālidāt), as far as the islands of the Moluccas in the extreme East, it is certain that Islam holds sway. […] In almost all these places the privileges and diplomas of kings and princes, the instruments and contracts of merchants and nobles (they call them shuhūd), and finally the familiar letters of everyone, are drawn up and written in this language almost alone.”
William Bedwell
1563 – 1632
English clergyman, mathematician and Semitist, known as the father of Arabic studies in England.
Original text — Latin
Imò ab vltimis extremi Occidentis oris, hoc est, ab insulis Fortunatis (خالدات Chalidet Arabes vocant) ad Muluccarum vsque insulas in extremo Orientis, Mohametismum regnare certum est. […] In hisce omnibus penè locis Regum & Principum priuilegia & diplomata, Mercatorum & Nobilium instrumenta, & contractus (شهود Shuhûd vocant:) Omnium denique literæ familiares hac ferè solâ concipiuntur, scribuntur.
In Arabic
بل من أقصى سواحل الغرب الأقصى، أي من الجزائر السعيدة (ويسمّيها العرب: الخالدات)، إلى جزر الملوك في أقصى المشرق، يسود الإسلامُ يقيناً. […] وفي هذه البلاد كلِّها تقريباً تُنشأ وتُكتب بهذه اللغة وحدها تقريباً مراسيمُ الملوك والأمراء وبراءاتُهم، ووثائقُ التجّار والأعيان وعقودُهم (ويسمّونها: شهود)، بل رسائلُ الناس جميعاً فيما بينهم.
Source
D. Iohannis apostoli et evangelistae epistolae catholicae omnes, Arabicè, «Ad pium lectorem Praefatio», Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana Raphelengii, 1612, p. pp. 3–4
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
The Fortunate Isles are the Canaries; the Moluccas are in today's Indonesia. The historian Robert Irwin judges that Bedwell overstated the case: Arabic was the language of diplomacy with Morocco, but over much of the Middle East Persian or Turkish was more usual. Translation from the Latin by Voice of Arabic.
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