Cide Hamete Benengeli


Cide Hamete Benengeli is a fictional Arab Muslim historian created by Miguel de Cervantes in his novel Don Quixote, who Cervantes says is the true author of most of the work. This is a skillful metafictional literary pirouette that seems to give more credibility to the text, making believe that Don Quixote was a real person and the story is decades old. However, it's fairly obvious to the reader that such a thing is impossible, and that the pretense of Cide Hamete's work is meant as a joke.
In the preface of Part One of the novel, Cervantes indicates that he is not the original author, but is simply passing on information that can be found in "the archives of La Mancha". At the end of Chapter VIII, Cervantes states that the information from the archives ends in a particularly exciting cliffhanger, and in Chapter IX, he describes finding an Arabic manuscript called "The History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian."
In Part Two, the young scholar Carrasco informs Don Quixote that the story of his adventures is well-known, thanks to the publication of his history by Cide Hamete.
Cide Hamete is Moorish, although this adjective is not explicitly applied to him. Cervantes says that he is "Arabian and Manchegan": in other words, a Spanish Muslim Arab-speaker, and not a North African or an Ottoman. However, in Part Two, Chapter XLIV, Benengeli writes, "I, though a Moor..."

Parody of chivalric romances

Cervantes' use of the supposed translation of a true record of events is a parody of an element commonly found in the books of chivalry. For example, in the Cristalián de España, author Beatriz Bernal claims that she found a book in an ancient tomb, and explains his decision to copy it. Another example can be seen in Florisando by Páez de Ribera, who claims to have translated a work of Greek origin from the Tuscan. These adventures are never presented as inventions of the authors themselves, thus giving them greater credibility. The tweaking of this narrative convention gave Cervantes the opportunity to make humorous, ironic comments, and even play several fictional games.

Etymology

Many speculations have been made about the meaning of Benengeli's name. The first element, "Cide," as Don Quixote states, means "sir" in Arabic: it is a corruption of سيد sīd.
"Hamete" is also the Castilian form of a proper name of Hispanic Muslim origin. However, scholars do not agree on its exact equivalent in Arabic, as it could correspond to three very similar names. The Egyptian Hispanist Abd al-Aziz al-Ahwani makes it equivalent to حمادة Hamāda; Abd al-Rahman Badawi opts for حميد Hāmid, while Mahmud Ali Makki affirms that is أحمد Aḥmad, a more common name than the others.
The meaning of "Benengeli" has made more ink flow. The first to propose an interpretation was the Arabist José Antonio Conde, who interpreted it as a Spanish version of ابن الأيل Ibn al-ayyil, "son of the deer". This was a subtle allusion to Cervantes' own surname, as the word for deer in Spanish is "ciervo". The scholars Diego Clemencín and Abd al-Rahman Badawi agreed.
The orientalist Leopoldo Eguílaz y Yanguas relates Benengeli to berenjena, a relation mentioned by Sancho Panza in the novel.
The Cervantists Saadeddine Bencheneb and Charles Marcilly proposed as an etymology ابن الإنجيل Ibn al-Inŷīl, that is, "son of the Gospel." This would be an ironic pun highlighting the difference between the supposedly Muslim author and the Christian character of the real author, himself.
For the Hispanicist Mahmud Ali Makki, none of the previous interpretations has consistency and is inclined to assume that the name is simply an invention, although he points out that it may be inspired by the surname of a well-known Andalusian family originally from Denia, the Beni Burungal or Berenguel.
The possible puns referenced above would rely on Cervantes' knowledge of the Arabic language, which is a feasible presumption. Cervantes spent five years captive in Algiers, and he was allowed to move around the city and interact with its inhabitants. On the other hand, Américo Castro was the first to point out its possible converse origin, a hypothesis that has been sustained to a greater or lesser degree by later authors. And La Mancha, finally, as well as a good part of the southern half of the Peninsula, was densely populated by Moriscos. In any case, the Arab and the Islamic were not alien to Cervantes.