The complaint of the Bishop of Cordoba, Alvaro in 9th century C.E. Spain:
Many of my coreligionists read verses and fairy tales of the Arabs, study the works of Muhammadan philosophers and theologians not in order to refute them but to learn to express themselves properly in the Arab language more correctly and more elegantly. Who among them studied the Gospels, and Prophets and Apostles? Alas! All talented Christian young men know only the language and literature of the Arabs, read and assiduously study the Arab books.... If somebody speaks of Christian books they contemptuously answer that they deserve no attention whetever (quasi vilissima contemnentes). Woe! The Christians have forgotten their own language, and there is hardly one among a thousand to be found who can write to a friend a decent greeting letter in Latin. But there is a numberless multitude who express themselves most elegantly in Arabic, and make poetry in this language with more beauty and more art than the Arabs themselves.
El Fadl, Khaled Abou (2002-2003).The culture of ugliness in modern Islam and reengaging morality. UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law 2, 33-97.
