Évariste Lévi-Provençal

Lévi- Provençal Évariste (* 1894 in Algiers, † March 27, 1956 in Paris) was a French medievalist, orientalist, Arabist and Islamic scholar.

His family, originally Jewish, came from Provence, and they began to use the name Provençal in the late 15th century. They took the name Levi probably after a stay in Italy during the 16th century. Évariste Lévi- Provençals ancestors came in 1600 in Algeria. He was born in Algiers. From 1926, he held a position at the University of Algiers, and later in 1945 at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Lévi- Provençal was the founder of the French Islamic Studies and the first director of the Institute of Islamic Studies ( Institut d' études islamiques ) in Algiers. He specialized in the history of Al -Andalus and the Muslims in Spain. He worked on the publication and translation of the Arabic sources for the history of Spain in the Middle Ages, often together with the Spanish Arabist Emilio García Gómez.

Writings (selection )

• La Conquête et l' emirate Hispano- umiayade ( 710-912 ) ( 1944), Volume 1 of Histoire de l' Espagne musulmane
• Le Siècle you califat de Cordova, Volume 3 of Histoire de l' Espagne musulmane
• L' Espagne au Xe siècle musulmane. Institutions et vie sociale (Paris, Maisonneuve & Larose, 1932)

Translations

• Séville musulmane au début du siècle XIIe. Le traité d' Ibn ʿ Abdun sur la vie urbaine et les corps de métiers, translated and provided with an introduction and notes by Évariste Lévi- Provençal, Maisonneuve, Paris 1947; Facsimile reprint in Maisoneueve et Larose, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-7068-1494-2