The Theology of Multilingualism and the Making of the Islamic Cosmopolis

Abstract

Specialists in multilingualism have long debated the role played by religious conceptualisations of linguistic diversity in fostering or hindering specific language practices and policies. With regard to Western societies, the myth of Babel has frequently been associated with the emergence of negative attitudes towards linguistic diversity. Conversely, Islamic civilisation developed a positive theology of language diversity, grounded in Qur’anic hermeneutics and Islamic prophetology, that not only accepted the multiplicity of human tongues as a divine sign but actively justified their adoption as vehicles of knowledge and power. The present contribution investigates the contours of what may be termed an ‘Islamic theology of multilingualism’: the epistemological framework that legitimised the use of multiple languages, including vernaculars bereft of any former written tradition, in education, literary composition, and administration. Drawing on textual passages from the Qur’an, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-Fārābī, al-Mubashshir, and Ibn ʿArabī, the article argues that Islamic prophetology—by positing a universal prophecy that adapts to the linguistic and cultural conditions of each human group—provides the theological foundation for a theory of vernacular as locutio naturalis, and that this framework is a key element in the making of the Islamic cosmopolis.