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Anselm Turmeda (ʿAbd Allāh al-Tarjumān)

عبد الله الترجمان (أنسلم تورميدا)

Notable figure d. 832 AH / 1429 CE · Source: Ömer Faruk Harman, «Tercüman, Abdullah», TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 40 (2011), 494–495 · Second source: Anselm Turmeda, Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana

From Spain; worked in Tunisia

Field: Translation

Affiliation

Wrote Tuhfat al-arib in Arabic; sultan's translator in Tunis

Biography

Born in Mallorca, a Franciscan who studied at Lleida and Bologna, he went to Tunis, became a Muslim there and took the name ʿAbd Allah. By his own account he learned Arabic within a year. He worked at the Tunis customs house, translating letters from abroad for the sultan, which earned him the name al-Tarjuman, and later headed it. In Arabic he wrote Tuhfat al-arib (1420), which opens with his life; before it he had written verse and prose in Catalan.