ASIN PALACIOS, MIGUEL. - Spanish priest and Arabist, b. in Saragossa on 5 July 1871, d. on 12 Aug. 1944. Member of the Royal Spanish Academy (president from 1943), of the Academy of History and of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, for about four decades the author held the chair of Arabic at the University of Madrid, enriching it with the rigor and effectiveness of his method, of which a recent example is the *Crestomatica de árabe literal* with glossary and elements of grammar (1939). From 1932 until his death he was director of the School of Arabic Studies in Madrid and Granada and of the journal *Al-Andalus*.
The author’s publications on Arab culture are extremely numerous, especially in the fields of philosophy, theology, and mysticism, without excluding comparative literature, folklore, and toponymy, etc. Notable among his works are those devoted to al-Ghazālī: *Algazel: dogmática, moral, ascética* (1901), *El justo medio en la creencia* (1929), *La espiritualidad de Algazel y su sentido cristiano* (1934–40); to Ibn Ḥazm, *Abenhazam de Córdoba y su Historia crítica de las ideas religiosas* (1927–32); to Ibn ʿArabī, *El Islam cristianizado* (1931). The origins of Arab philosophy in Spain were studied by the author in *Abenmasarra y su escuela* (1914). Besides studies on Avempace, Ibn Tumlūs, and others,
in 1940 the author published an edition with Spanish translation of the philosophical works of Ibn al-Sīd of Badajoz (*Al-Andalus*, 5 [1940], pp. 45–155), and began that of the writings of Avempace. His highly original thesis *La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia* (1919) was both admired and debated; the author himself collected the documents of the controversy in *Historia y crítica de una polémica* (1924), reprinted recently (1943) together with the *Eschatology*. The author is also responsible for important writings on the relations of Ramon Llull, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, and Pascal with Islam.
Among scholars of Arab studies, the author, with his keen insight, vast knowledge of sources, mastery of theology and philosophy, and stylistic elegance, contributed greatly to making the West aware of the rich Islamic cultural heritage, its derivation from Christian the East, and its influence on the origins of Scholasticism and various sectors of Christian mysticism.