Papers from a Special Session of the fifty-fourth meeting of the Seminar FOR Arabian Studies held online on 9 July 2021
Edited by J.C. Carvajal López and M. Fierro SEMINAR FOR ARABIAN STUDIES
Papers from A Special Session of the fifty-fourth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held online on 9 July 2021
Edited by J.C. Carvajal López and M. Fierro SEMINAR FOR ARABIAN STUDIESEdition
Edited by J.C. Carvajal López and M.
Javier Rosón and Hurra! Estudio
FierroCover illustration: A map that Al-Idrisi made for Roger II of Sicily in 1154 AD
ISBN 978-84-09-44238-6
© of the texts: its authors © of the photographs: its authors © of the present edition: Casa Árabe c/ Alcalá, 62. 28009 Madrid (España) www.casaarabe.es
Seminar for Arabian Studies c/o Department of Archaeology, University of Durham Lower Mount Joy, South Rd, Durham DH1 3LE e-mail psas@theiasa.com
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The Steering Committee of the Seminar for Arabian Studies is currently made up of nineteen academic members. The Editorial Committee of the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies includes nine additional members as follows:
Dr Julian Jansen van Rensburg (Chairperson, Assistant Editor)
Dr Steven Karacic (Editor)
Dr Catherine Ayres-Kennet (Secretary)
Dr Robert Wilson (Treasurer)
Dr Valentina Azzarà
Dr Knut Bretzke
Professor Robert Carter
Dr José Carvajal López
Dr Bleda Düring
Dr Nadia Durrani
Dr Daniel Eddisford (Assistant Editor)
Dr Orhan Elmaz (Assistant Editor)
Dr Derek Kennet
Helen Knox (Copy-editor)
Michael C.A. Macdonald
Dr Harry Munt (Assistant Editor)
Dr Irene Rossi
Dr Timothy Power
Dr Janet Watson
Professor Alessandra Avanzini
Professor Soumyen Bandyopadhyay
Professor Ricardo Eichmann
Professor Clive Holes
Professor Khalil Al-Muaikel
Professor Daniel T. Potts
Professor Christian J. Robin
Dr Janet Starkey
Professor Lloyd Weeks
The 54th Seminar for Arabian Studies was originally intended to take place in the beautiful Mudéjar House of the prestigious Casa Árabe in Cordoba (Spain) in summer 2020, with two special sessions dedicated to the historical and cultural relations between the Iberian and Arabian peninsulas. The Covid pandemic meant that this was impossible, but Casa Árabe maintained its commitment to host the Seminar in 2021, which was finally celebrated virtually in July 2021. This was kindly hosted online by the Department of Archaeology at Durham University with the full participation of Casa Árabe, which hosted the two special sessions and the keynote lecture of Professor Maribel Fierro online. This special volume presenting the content of the special sessions that were presented at the Seminar for Arabian Studies will be published online by the Casa Árabe. The organising Committee of the Seminar for Arabian Studies wishes to express its sincere thanks for the collaboration and support provided by Casa Árabe. For more information on the Seminar for Arabian Studies and the Proceedings please visit the International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA)’s website https:// www.theiasa.com/seminar/
Casa Árabe is a consortium comprising:
José C. Carvajal LópezMedina in al-Andalus and the Maghrib 15 Maribel Fierro
The teachers of al-Andalus: The intellectual contributions of the Arabian Peninsula to the formation of early al-Andalus (92-238/711-852) 31 Abdenour Padillo-Saoud
The genealogical heritage of al-Andalus as a permanent cultural link with the Arabian Peninsula. The first period of the Umayyad age 45 Jaafar Ben El Haj Soulami
The evolution of medical Arabic: from the Arabian Peninsula to the Iberian Peninsula 57 Sara Solá Portillo y Dana Zaben
When Borges saw death as the blundering of a blind camel: literary mistranslations as a source for creativity 71 José María Toro Piqueras
Some Aspects of the Hijaz’s Contribution to the Defense of Ibn ‘Arabi and His Thought 85 Naser Dumairieh
The 54th Seminar for Arabian Studies was celebrated online in the two long weekends spanning Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th of July and Friday 9th to Sunday 11th July 2021. Although held on the Internet, the Seminar was nominally attached to Casa Árabe in Cordoba, Spain. In fact, the Seminar had been originally planned to be celebrated in Cordoba in July 2020, but the global pandemic made it impossible that year. The Covid-19 was still with us in 2021, but by then the rise of Zoom and of online conferences enabled us to carry on with the Seminar and address the latest research on Arabia (which had advanced considerably in spite of two years of global lockdowns). This unfortunately meant that the meeting could not be held physically in Cordoba, despite the kind disposition of Casa Árabe until the last minute. The support of Casa Árabe was instrumental to hold the special sessions about the connections between Arabia and al-Andalus, since they provided the Youtube channel, the technical expertise and the advertising. Casa Árabe also hosted the Annual Keynote Lecture, the main event of every seminar. Therefore, even if the delegates were not able to travel to Spain, Casa Árabe and Cordoba had a strong and central presence in the 54th Seminar.
It is worth examining a bit of history to see how the Seminar arrived in Cordoba, and what this means for those interested in Arabia. The Seminar for Arabian Studies is a unique forum for the presentation of research on the culture and landscapes of the Arabian Peninsula, including archaeology, history, epigraphy, languages, literature, art, ethnography, geography, etc. It was first established as an informal group in 1968 around the British Archaeological Survey of Arabia, and it grew to become a very successful international conference celebrated for three days in July. For many years was celebrated exclusively in UK, until the Steering Committee of the Seminar took the decision to take it beyond the British borders. In 2019 the 53rd Seminar of Arabian Studies was celebrated
in the University of Leiden (Netherlands) with great success. In 2020 the 54th Seminar was scheduled to be celebrated in Casa Árabe, Cordoba (Spain).
With occasion of its landing in Iberia for the first time, the Steering Committee of the Seminar decided to organise a set of special sessions to celebrate the connections between the two peninsulas, Arabia and al-Andalus, Islamic Iberia. After all, if Arabia was the cradle of Islam, al-Andalus was the ground where it grew into one of its most original and recognizable manifestations. But there are of course other connections beyond Islam: both peninsulas are intercontinental bridges, and indeed both of them acted as such for early humans. The similarities in climate, relief and strategic position suggested that they could have parallel histories that deserved to be explored. Therefore, after some consideration, two special sessions were organised:
- A comparative session of cultural environmental adaptations in the Arabian and in the Iberian peninsulas.
- A session to consider intellectual links between the two Islamic peninsulas, Jazirat al-‘Arab and Jazirat al-Andalus
Additionally, the Steering Committee proposed the name of Prof Maribel Fierro, one of the most prestigious Spanish Arabists, for the delivery of the Annual Keynote Lecture. Prof Fierro accepted and prepared a topic on the projections of the Holy City of Medina in Muslim religiosity in Iberia and the Maghreb.
The sessions and the keynote lecture raised great expectations, even more so because they were part of the prestigious Seminar for Arabian Studies. The Year of the Pandemic stopped everything, but only for 2020. The Special Sessions and Fierro’s Keynote Lecture were celebrated on Friday 9th July 2021 with great success, which called for publication.
The session on intellectual links between Islamic Arabia and al-Andalus offered many interesting results, of which five are included in this volume. The sixth paper of the volume (the first one in the organisation of this volume) emerges out of the Keynote Lecture delivered by Maribel Fierro. They are all highly original studies that trace the connections and bridges between culture, philosophy, religiosity and memory between very distant lands.
The first paper of the volume, authored by Maribel Fierro, discusses the ways in which the Holy City of Madina, in the Hejaz, became present in religious practices in Maghreb and al-Andalus. Madina was of course the resting place of the Prophet and the birthplace of the founder of the Maliki school of law (Malik ibn Anas). It became the object of so strong devotion that believers unable to travel would undertake ‘virtual’ pilgrimages by sending letters to be read at Muhammad’s Grave. Fierro also notes how the narrative of the attempt of two Iberian Christians to steal the body of Muhammad was instrumentalised as a call to protect al-Andalus from the advance of the Christian polities. The last part of the paper is dedicated to explore the ways in which a vision of Umayyad Cordoba as a new Madina was built as an attempt to boost the Umayyad’s political credentials.
The connections of al-Andalus with Madina and other Eastern centres of knowledge are further explored in the next paper by Abdenour Padillo Saoud. He follows the evidence of biographical dictionaries to find out where Andalusi scholars were travelling to learn. They visited different masters in Kairouan, Cairo, Iraq, and, most importantly, Madina and Mecca. The period under consideration encompasses the years between 711, the beginning of the conquest of al-Andalus, and 852, the end of the emirate of ‘Abd alRahman II, a turning point in the historical construction of the Umayyad polity in the Iberian peninsula and of the travels of the early scholars. It is in this early period when the intellectual life of al-Andalus was more dependent of the centres of the knowledge of the East; after 852, Andalusi scholars developed their own culture and learning schools, and, although travels continued, destinations were more diverse. Padillo Saoud is able to offer an overview of the masters that the early Andalusi scholars visited and the topics on which they showed most interest.
From the centrality of Arabia in the religiosity and the intellectuality of al-Andalus it is necessary to go on to consider the presence of the Arabian tribes in the collective mind. This is the object of study of the next paper, written by Jaafar Ben El-Hajj Soulami. The author develops a detective work to try to recompose the works of Ibn Habib, the earliest Andalusi genealogist, on the bases of the work of later scholars. In his reconstruction of Ibn Habib’s writings, Ben El-Hajj Soulami shows what the priorities of the scholar were, and how central the memory of Arabia was in Andalusi thought. Ibn Habib links the history of al-Andalus to a sacred history that connects the Andalusi tribes with Biblical tribes and with the Islamic sacred genealogy (the Prophet and His companions). Interestingly, the Berbers are given a special (negative) place in this sacred history, which additionally tends ignores the great Islamic conquerors of the West (like ‘Uqba ibn al-Nafi‘ al-Fihri) and the non-Muslim Iberian families. The clearest beneficiaries of this mentality were clearly the Umayyads, representatives of the prestigious Quraysh tribe, which they promoted to the point of creating a registration office of Qurashis in al-Andalus. Ben El-Hajj Soulami offers many interesting reflections about the meaning of this particular institution in relation to the “genealogical science”.
And from genealogical science, the next paper by Sara Solá Portillo and Dana Zaben takes us to medicine. The authors explore in this text the role of the Arabic language as a medium of transmission of knowledge. Arabic was for centuries a spoken dialect of the nomad tribes of Arabia, but thanks to the Islamic expansion and the rise of the Caliphates became one of the main scientific and philosophical languages of the Middle Ages. Solá Portillo and Zaben focus on medical Arabic, in particular of Galen’s On simple drugs, and on the translations that enabled the transmission of Ancient knowledge in Greek to Latin, via Arabic. But the influence of Arabic goes beyond simple transmission. Galen’s original text was translated in Baghdad in the 9th century by Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his disciples. This was a task that involved no less than creating a new pharmacological terminology, and that
allowed later generations of Arabic scholars to advance medical knowledge significantly, and this is clearly seen in the footprint that the Arabic left in Latin as well. When Gerard of Cremona translated On simple drugs from Arabic to Latin in Toledo in the 12th century, he was forced to use Arabic words to reflect Greek technical terms, and he even commented on the book with the use of arabisms to expand the text. As Solá Portillo and Zaben note, this is a case example of a larger tradition of transmission of knowledge that went beyond mere translation, and that had the connection between Arabia and al-Andalus at its core.
The deep meaning of translation is also the focus of the reflection made by José María Toro Piqueras in the next paper. The connection between Arabia and al-Andalus is not unilinear and clear in this paper, but that does not mean it is not there. Toro Piqueras analyses, in his own words, “the hidden threads that link the Arabian and the Iberian peninsulas” through an analysis of a tale by Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most famous literature writers in Spanish language, but also a prolific translator. The tale “Averroes’s Search” considers the efforts of Averroes, Ibn Rushd, to understand Aristotle without the necessary background, and highlights both the futility of any attempt to reach a perfect transmission, but also the creative engagement that any translation involves. Toro Piqueras takes this element of reflection to Borges’s own story. The Argentinian writer used an Orientalist translation into English of a famous mu‘allaqa where “death” was translated as “the blundering of a blind camel”. The misleading translation, however, becomes the source of creativity in Borges’s tale, as the discussion on the metaphor is central to the story. Toro Piqueras argues that the source of this creativity is an ultimate understanding of the mu‘allaqa beyond the Orientalist translation, which is a reflection of the intimate historical connection between Arabia and al-Andalus in the fantasy of the Argentinian author.
The final paper in this collection inverts the direction of the flow of relationships between Arabia and al-Andalus. If all the other papers focus on the influence of Arabia on al-Andalus, or on the thought about al-Andalus, the work of Naser Dumairieh looks at the influence of a prominent Andalusi mystic, Ibn ‘Arabi, on Hejazi scholarly debates. In particular, Dumairieh focuses on two scholars of the Akbarian tradition, Al-Shaykh al-Makki and Muhammad ibn Rasul al-Barzanji al-Madani, who wrote apologetically in favour of the philosophy of Ibn ‘Arabi and against his polemicists. For Dumairieh, the presence and the argumentation of these two scholars reveals the spread of traditions of Akbarian thought in the Arabian Peninsula before the development of Wahhabism. This not only offers a glimpse of the variety of the intellectual life in the Hejaz in the seventeenth century, but also brings to light another connection between Arabia and al-Andalus.
It is fair to say that papers collected in this volume covered a range of topics that accounts for the many links that connect the two Islamic peninsulas, some of them as solid as ostensible, others more ethereal and surreptitious, but not less relevant.
A word is due about the other session, about environmental adaptation. We must thank the stimulating debate that was held between Eduardo Manzano Moreno, Helena
Kirchner, José María Martín Civantos and Louise Purdue. They offered a comparative perspective of the development of irrigated agricultural systems in al-Andalus and the history of the use of water in south-eastern Arabia that recent geoarchaeological works are developing. Unfortunately, their multiple commitments made impossible to have a publishable version of their works We are hopeful that this bold debate will see publication one day. In the meantime, we can rejoice on the proceedings that we have the pleasure of presenting in this volume.
José C. Carvajal López did his undergraduate degree and his PhD in the University of Granada (Spain). He then held a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship in the University of Sheffield (UK), became lecturer of Islamic Archaeology in UCL Qatar, and since 2018 is a lecturer of Historical Archaeology at the University of Leicester (UK). His specialist field as an archaeologist is pottery and material culture in general, primarily in Iberia, but he also has experience in landscape and architectural archaeology. He focuses on archaeological study of the Islamic culture, mainly in the process of Islamization and in interactions of Islam with other cultures. He searches for approaches that combine anthropological theory on material culture and analyses with scientific techniques.
Medina holds a special place in the history of al-Andalus and the Maghrib (North Africa, west of Egypt) as regards religiosity, law and political legitimization. Mu h ammad’s grave in Medina made it a “city-relic” filled with the blessings of the Prophet’s body. 1 Both the grave and the mosque founded by Mu h ammad became venerated places, and the destination for pilgrims seeking the Prophet’s intercession and healing. 2 The Prophet was buried in the bedroom ( hujra ) of his wife ‘ A ’ isha, part of the dwelling where Muhammad lived, adjacent to the original Medinese mosque. 3 During the reign of the Umayyad caliph al-Walid (r. 86/70596/715), the decision was taken to expand the mosque, a renewal that caused the grave to become surrounded by a pentagonal structure and incorporated into the mosque’s perimeter. The pentagonal shape was meant to set it off and thereby prevent pilgrims from confusing the Prophet’s grave with the direction of the Ka ‘ ba. 4 However, this did
* This paper was read at the 54th Seminar for Arabian Studies (July 2021) that took place in Casa Árabe, Córdoba. I wish to thank the organizers and most especially José Carvajal López for the invitation to take part in this event. While it relies on previous studies of mine, the overview as offered here is new. I wish to thank Nicholas Callaway for his linguistic revision and his suggestions. This research has been carried out in the framework of the research project Contextos locales y dinámicas globales: al-Andalus y el Magreb en el Oriente islámico (AMOI), FFI2016-78878-R AEI/FEDER, UE.
1 Denis Gril (2006). “Le corps du Prophète,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, Le corps et le sacré en Orient musulman 113-15, pp. 37-57.
2 Meir J. Kister (1969). “‘You shall only set out for three mosques’: A study of an early tradition,” Le Muséon 82, pp. 173-196; Harry Munt (2014). The Holy City of Medina: Sacred Space in Early Islamic Arabia. Cambridge..
3 Leor Halevi (2007). Muhammad’s grave: Death rites and the making of Islamic society. New York, esp. 188-9, 192-6; Harry Munt (2014). The Holy City of Medina, Op. Cit., esp. 107-110, 116-7.
4 Leor Halevi (2007). Muhammad’s grave, Op. Cit., esp. 194.
not deter pilgrims from facing the grave to pray, a practice condemned by the Andalusi Abu Bakr al-Turtushi (d. 520/1126). He stated that any invocation offered there had to be performed facing the mosque’s qibla and with one’s back turned to Muhammad’s grave; also, that pilgrims should not touch the grave, although he did condone going near it and saluting the Prophet. 5
Medina was also the birthplace of Malik b. Anas (d. 179/795), the eponymous founder of the Maliki school of law, for which the legal practice (‘amal) of Medina plays a crucial role. From early on (late 2nd/8th-3rd/9th), Malikism spread in the Islamic West where it eventually became the prevalent legal school.
Because of these Prophetic and Maliki links, Andalusi and Maghribi rulers often sought legitimacy by establishing connections with Medinese history, buildings and relics, while veneration for Muhammad’s grave in Medina became a defining feature of Maghribi religiosity.6 My overview of the relevance of Medina in the Islamic West starts with a peculiar practice related to this veneration.
Letters from the Maghrib to the Prophet’s grave in Medina and the ‘virtual’ ziyara
The Muslims of al-Andalus and the Maghrib who felt attracted to the world of scholarship undertook the travel of study (rihla fi talab al-‘ilm) to the East, which could be combined with the pilgrimage to Mecca. In general, those who travelled to the East and performed the pilgrimage to Mecca included the visitation (ziyara) of Medina,7 to the extent that this visitation came to be considered part of the hajj itself, as indicated in the title of a book by Makki b. Abi Talib al-Qayrawani al-Qurtubi (355/966-437/1045), Kitab bayan al-‘amal fi l-hajj awwal al-ihram ila ziyarat qabr rasul Allah 8 Let’s see just two examples of how strong the desire to visit Medina was. The Marinid chancellor Ibn Hizb Allah al-Wadi Ashi (d. 788/1386), who left the Maghrib and settled in Jerusalem, mentioned the performance of both the pilgrimage to Mecca and the ziyara to Medina as his reason for leaving the Maghrib.9 Before him, in 579/1183, ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Musa al-Muradi (d. 618/1221), a merchant from Granada, performed the pilgrimage to Mecca,
5 Al-Turtushi (1990). Kitab al-hawadith wa-l-bida‘, ed. ‘Abd al-Majid Turki. Beirut, 1990); and Al-Turtushi (1993), Kitab al-hawadith wa-l-bida‘, transl. and study M. I. Fierro. Madrid, esp. no. 274.
6 For the transfer of sacred space from the East to Christian Iberia see A. G. Beaver (2013). “From Jerusalem to Toledo: Replica, Landscape and the Nation in Renaissance Iberia,” Past and Present 218, pp. 55-90.
7 For the preferred Andalusi destinations in the East, see Maria Luisa Ávila (dir.). Prosopografía de los ulemas de al-Andalus (PUA), at https://www.eea.csic.es/pua/. For the visitation of Medina, Harry Munt (2014). The Holy City of Medina, Op. Cit., esp. 123-147.
8 Jorge Lirola Delgado and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2012). Biblioteca de al-Andalus vol. 1. Almería, esp. no. 242, 3.
9 Josef Ženka (2021). “A Mamluk-Andalusi holograph manuscript of the former Marinid Chancellor Muhammad Ibn Hizb Allah al-Wadi Ashi (d. 788 H/1386 CE),” in M. Fierro and M. Penelas (eds.), The Maghrib in the Mashriq. Travel, Knowledge and Identity. De Gruyter, pp. 481-516, esp. 489.
but was unable to visit the grave of the Prophet. His regret was so great that he eventually undertook a second pilgrimage so that he could visit Medina.10 This devotion for Medina includes a feature that is exclusive to the Islamic West: those who could not travel sent letters with pilgrims to be read at Muhammad’s graveside, praising him and seeking his intercession.11 This practice is documented from the beginning of the 6th/12th century.12 The Andalusi man of letters Ibn Abi l-Khisal (d. 540/1145) wrote one of the earliest preserved texts on behalf of the paralyzed ‘Abd al-Haqq al-Sayrafi:
Oh seal of the Prophets, the Intercessor to his Lord / [This is] the prayer of a broken man, whose heart is humbled and whose glance is cast low... Truly, I hope that they be returned to health / through the mercy of He who will revive our bones and who cures, / You are the one in whom we place our hope, in life and in death / to avert [from us] catastrophes that are not easily prevented... 13
The Egyptian al-Qalqashandi (d. 821/1418) believed that the remoteness of the land was the reason for this practice, but from the remote lands of the Eastern periphery no similar practice originated. In my view, the practice can be linked to specific historical developments. The letters started to be written in the early 6th/12th century, at the time of the Berber empires: first, that of the Almoravids, Sanhaja camel-drivers from the Sahara, and then that of the Almohads, Masmuda mountain men from the High Atlas. These were scarcely Arabicized and Islamicized peoples, led by charismatic figures and living in territories where holy men and their sanctuaries (normally formed around the graves of such saintly figures) played crucial roles in the lives of individuals and their communities.14 Both the Almoravids and the Almohads incorporated al-Andalus into their empires. The men of letters and scholars of al-Andalus – an urbanized region characterized by strong networks of ‘ulama’ whose raison d’être was the promotion and defence of normative Islam – had to confront the unique religiosity of these new rulers. The first letters directed to the Prophet were written by such urban Andalusi scholars striving to uphold the primacy of the
10 Ibn al-Khatib (1988). Al-Ihata fi akhbar Gharnata: nusus jadida lam tunshar, ed. ‘Abd al-Salam Shaqqur. Tetouan.
11 Hassan Lachheb (2016). Dear Prophet: the tradition of sending letters to Muhammad and the making of the Maghribi Prophet. Ph.D. diss., Indiana University.
12 The extent to which it was continued in the early Almohad period needs to be studied; letters written in Almohad times are attested but they seem to reflect the moment in which the Almohad caliphs started to tone down, and even move away from, the original Mahdism of the movement.
13 Hassan Lachheb (2016). Dear Prophet: the tradition of sending letters to Muhammad…, Op. Cit., esp. 411-13.
14 A. W. Ould Sheikh and B. Saison (1987). “Vie(s) et mort(s) de al-Imam al-Hadrami. Autour de la posterité saharienne du mouvement almoravide (11e-17e s.),” Arabica 34, pp. 48-79; Pascal Buresi (2008). “Les cultes rendus à la tombe du mahdi Ibn Tumart à Tinmal (XIIe–XIIIe s.),” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 152 (1), pp. 391-438.
figure of Muhammad. In Ceuta – a North-African town long under Andalusi influence –the Maliki jurist Qadi ‘Iyad (d. 544/1149), in the letter he wrote to the Prophet, addresses him like a person who is alive, present even if buried in a faraway place, and powerful enough to intercede for Muslims in this world and the next.15
Qadi ‘Iyad’s intellectual production was oriented toward counteracting the attraction that Maghribis felt for charismatic figures such as the Almohad Mahdi, who threatened the singularity of the Prophet, and also to uphold the superiority of Maliki jurists over concurrent religious figures such as saints.16 Qadi ‘Iyad’s letter sent to the Prophet’s grave should be seen as part of this endeavour. The Almohad Mahdi was buried in Tinmal, in the Atlas mountains, and his grave became an object of veneration. Qadi ‘Iyad’s letter sought to demonstrate that even if the Prophet’s grave was located far away in a place that most Maghribis would never visit, the Prophet could still have a direct impact on their lives. Through the letters, the Prophet’s holy grave was acknowledged and venerated, and thus universalized, while, at the same time, the Prophet’s figure became localized. Muhammad’s grave in Medina and the veneration for the Arab prophet thus became powerful rivals to the local saints’ graves (and that of the Almohad Mahdi) and the pilgrimages and devotion to them.
The letters opened up the possibility of a mental ziyara to the Prophet’s grave, a trend that culminated with a devotional book entitled Dala’il al-khayrat wa-shawariq al-anwar fii dhikr al-salat ‘ala l-nabi al-mukhtar written in 857/1453 by a Maghribi Sufi, al-Jazuli (806/1404-869/1465). The book is a compilation of litanies and blessings for the Prophet, believed to convey protection and healing to whomever recites them. The book includes a description of the Prophet’s grave, and some of the manuscripts include a schematic drawing of the tombs of the Prophet and the first two caliphs.17 This drawing projected the reader to the grave of Muhammad as a virtual substitute for physical visitation. Another illustration in some manuscripts depicts the pulpit of the Prophet and his prayer niche in the Mosque of Medina. Sometimes, the Prophetic saying ma bayna qabri wa-minbari rawda min riyad al-janna wa-minbari ‘ala hawdi (“Whatever is between my grave and my pulpit, is one of the gardens of Paradise, and my pulpit is by my basin”) is quoted.18
The Dala’il al-khayrat enjoyed great popularity all over the Islamic world, but while in the Eastern manuscripts a global view of the Medinan sanctuary in its entirety is included,
15 Hassan Lachheb (2016). Dear Prophet: the tradition of sending letters to Muhammad…, Op. Cit., esp. 414-27.
16 Maribel Fierro (2011). “El tratado sobre el Profeta del cadí ‘Iyad y el contexto almohade,” in Legendaria Medievalia en honor de Concepción Castillo Castillo. Córdoba, pp. 19-34; Javier Albarrán (2015). Veneración y polémica. Muhammad en la obra del Qadi ‘Iyad. Madrid.
17 Hiba Abid (2017) “La Vénération du Prophète en Occident musulman à travers l’étude codicologique de livres de piété (xie/xviie–xiiie/xixe siècles),” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 178, pp. 151-175; also by Hiba Abid (2021). “Material Images and Mental Ziyara: Depicting the Prophet’s Grave in North African Devotional Books (Dala’il al-Khayrat),” Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 1 (1-2), pp. 331–354.
18 On this hadith, Heribert Busse (1988). “Die Kanzel des Propheten im Paradisiesgarten,” Die Welt des Islams 28, pp. 99-111, esp. 107.
as well as the image of the sanctuary of Mecca, in the Maghribi versions the focus is specifically on the tombs.19 Thus, an intimate relationship between the reader and the body of the Prophet is established, one closer than that experienced by the actual pilgrims in Medina, who would not have had access to the graves, as they are protected by metal railings and a stone wall.
An AndAlusi/MAghribi AttAck on the ProPhet’s grAve in MedinA?
Such protection was meant to control the believers’ excesses in their veneration, but also to guard against possible attacks on the grave. The Fatimid imam-caliphs were known for their desire to appropriate the relics of their ancestors, aiming at establishing their credentials as the rightful heirs to the Prophet, and two of them are said to have attempted to steal the Prophet’s remains from Medina.20 One of these attempts took place in the 6th/12th century, as Fatimid power waned, but also as powers of intercession were increasingly attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, and the visitation of graves became increasingly popular. The Fatimids were not alone in their attempts. In the year 557/1162, Muslim sources report that two Christians from al-Andalus (here taken to mean the Iberian Peninsula), sent by the kings of Christendom, attempted to steal the remains of the Prophet from his grave in Medina or to destroy them. I have studied elsewhere the different versions of this narrative, first attested in the history of Medina by al-Matari (d. 741/1340) written in the first half of the 8th/14th century, almost two centuries after the event was supposed to have taken place.21 The Christian plot was allegedly foiled by the Sunni ruler Nur al-Din (d. 565/1174) who travelled to Medina in that same year. His journey was motivated by a vision he had wherein the Prophet asked for his help to fend off two fair-haired men. Once in Medina, Nur al-Din was able to uncover two Christians from the Iberian Peninsula – the same ones that had appeared to him in his dream – who had dug a tunnel under the southeastern wall of the mosque that ran toward the Prophet’s grave. The two men were executed and Nur al-Din built new walls to protect Medina. According to another version, the men came from the Maghrib; once their plot was discovered, the sultan ordered great quantities of lead to be brought in, and a ditch to be dug around the grave in its entirety. The lead was melted and used to fill up the ditch so that an underground wall of lead would protect
19 Jan Just Witkam (2007). “The battle of images: Mecca vs. Medina in the iconography of the manuscripts of al-Jazuli’s Dala’il al-Khayrat,” in Judith Pfeiffer and Manfred Kropp (eds.), Theoretical Approaches to the Transmission and Edition of Oriental Manuscripts: Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Istanbul March 28-30, 2001. Würzburg, pp. 67-82, 295-300 (illustrations).
20 Paul E. Walker (2003). “Purloined Symbols of the Past: The theft of souvenirs and sacred relics in the rivalry between the Abbasids and Fatimids,” in F. Daftary and J. Meri (eds.), Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam: Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung. London, pp. 364-87.
21 Maribel Fierro (2023, forthcoming). “A Christian Iberian attack in Medina in the 12th century? Some keys to understand an unusual story,” in Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo (ed.), A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton. Leiden.
the grave.22 Nur al-Din was in fact concerned about the safety of Medina, be it from attacks by the Bedouins, the Fatimids, or even from the Crusaders.23 The attribution of the attack to Christians from the Islamic West reflects later concerns. From the 6th/12th-7th/13th centuries onwards, increasing numbers of Andalusi scholars emigrated to Egypt and the central lands of Islam. The main factor behind this phenomenon was the Christians’ territorial gains in the Iberian Peninsula. In the writings of some of these emigrants there is a noticeable desire to arouse interest in the plight of their homeland. The earliest source to record the failed Iberian Christian plot against the Prophet’s grave reflects, in my view, a context in which Andalusi emigrants tried – unsuccessfully – to influence the policies of rulers in the Mashriq in order to save their homeland from Christian conquest, by claiming that the Christians of the Iberian Peninsula also constituted a threat to the Islamic heartland, here in the form of Prophet’s grave.24
Pious Muslims began seeking out the traces left by the Prophet from a very early date, as through them the memory of his sacred figure could be revived. By the same token, this search has, since its origins, also been regarded as dangerous, because it could result in polytheistic beliefs and practices. This issue was debated under the rubric of ittiba‘ athar al-nabi (‘following the traces of the Prophet’), discussed by the Cordoban scholar Ibn Waddah, among others.25 One of these traces was the room where Mary the Copt, the Christian slave who begot the Prophet his son Ibrahim, had lived in Medina. The Cordoban mystic Ibn Masarra al-Qurtubi (d. 319/931) visited it during his pilgrimage. Upon his return, he settled in the mountains near Cordoba. In his dwelling there, Ibn Masarra built an exact recreation of the room of Mary the Copt.26 Mary’s figure was apt to be appealing to a descendant of a non-Arab convert to Islam like Ibn Masarra. Contrary to the rest of the Prophet’s wives, Mary the Copt was a slave and a non-Arab. Because of her, the Prophet advised his community to treat the Coptic people with kindness, since
22 Moshe Perlmann (1958). “Asnawi’s tract against Christian officials,” in S. Löwinger, A. Scheiber and J. Somogyi (eds.), Ignace Goldziher memorial volume II. Jerusalem, pp. 172-208.
23 A crusader raid in the Red Sea took place after his death: Alex Mallett (2008). “A Trip Down the Red Sea with Reynald of Châtillon,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 18 (2), pp. 141-153.
24 For a more detailed explanation see Maribel Fierro (2023, forthcoming). “A Christian Iberian attack in Medina…” Op. Cit.
25 Ibn Waddah (1987), Kitab al-bida‘, ed. and transl. M. I. Fierro. Madrid, 1987. See also Meir J. Kister (1996). “Sanctity joint and divided: On holy places in the Islamic tradition,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20, pp. 18-65; Miklos Muranyi (2012). “The emergence of holy places in early Islam: on the Prophet’s track,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 39, pp. 165-171; and Miklos Muranyi (2020). “Visited Places on the Prophet’s Track in Mecca and Medina,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 49, pp. 217-230.
26 Maribel Fierro (2012). “Plants, Mary the Copt, Abraham, donkeys and knowledge: Again on Batinism during the Umayyad caliphate in al-Andalus,” in Difference and Dynamics in Islam. Festschrift for Heinz Halm on his 70th birthday. Würzburg, pp. 125-144, esp. 134, on which is based what follows.
Ibrahim’s birth had made them their kindred.27 Moreover, Mary the Copt was – apart from Khadija –the only wife who begot Muhammad a child, becoming the mother of the Prophet’s potential male heir, endowed, according to some, with his father’s special powers. Ibn Masarra believed that man can achieve knowledge of God through contemplation of Creation in a process of reasoning by inference that leads to the Unseen, a path that the prophets had followed in reverse order. He was thus accused of having claimed to be a prophet himself.28 We do not have enough information to fully understand what his aim was in reproducing Mary’s room, but it clearly involved the transfer of sacred space from Medina to al-Andalus.
This sort of transfer was not limited to scholars; the Cordoban Umayyads themselves acted similarly. N. Khoury has analyzed how the author of a literary compilation written for ‘Abd al-Rahman III (r. 300/912-350/961) wanted to impress on his readers that the Mosque of Cordoba closely resembled that of Medina. 29 This is clearly linked to the strong campaign of legitimization carried out by ‘Abd al-Rahman III, the first Cordoban Umayyad to lay claim to the title of caliph. He had to face the danger represented by the Fatimids, who had already established a caliphate of their own in Ifriqiya (roughly what is now Tunisia). The Fatimids claimed direct descent from the Prophet, and also claimed to be the bearers of the Prophet’s charismatic gifts, involving the ability to perform miracles, infallibility and supernatural knowledge. 30
The Umayyads could not but react to the strong claims to religious and political authority made by the Fatimids, whose missionaries entered the Iberian Peninsula on several occasions. They therefore strove to counteract such claims in a number of ways, as I have explored elsewhere. 31
The Umayyads systematically destroyed all minbars from which atop allegiance to the Fatimids had been proclaimed. At the same time, a new and movable minbar for the Friday mosque in Cordoba was completed in the year 365/975-6. The space where it was stored when not in use was a closet built to the right of the mihrab, and to the right of both the closet and the mihrab was the entrance to the passageway leading from the royal palace to the mosque. F. Hernández Jiménez was of the opinion that the richness and technical
27 Aisha Hidayatullah (2010). “Mariyya the Copt: Gender, sex and heritage in the legacy of Muhammad’s umm walad,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21 (3), pp. 221-43.
28 Joseph Kenny (2002). “Ibn-Masarra: His Risala al-i‘tibar,’ Orita: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 34, pp. 1-26; Pilar Garrido (2008). “Traducción anotada de la Risalat al-i‘tibar de Ibn Masarra de Córdoba,” Estudios humanisticos, Filología 30, pp. 139-63.
29 Nuha N. N. Khoury (1996). “The meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the tenth century,” Muqarnas 13, pp. 80-98.
30 Heinz Halm (1996). The Empire of the Mahdi. The Rise of the Fatimids, transl. Michael Bonner. Leiden, esp. 346-354.
31 Maribel Fierro (2005). Abd al-Rahman III. The first Cordoban caliph. Oxford, esp. 37-41; and Maribel Fierro (2017). “Madinat al-zahra’, Paradise and the Fatimids,” in S. Günther and T. Lawson (eds.), Roads to Paradise. Eschatology and concepts of the hereafter in Islam. Leiden, pp. 979-1009.
perfection of the new minbar must have been the reason for putting it away after the Friday sermon, as it was probably feared that it could be destroyed by those who wanted to take pieces as relics.32 But another possibility should be taken into account, one that links the Cordoban minbar to that of the Prophet in Medina.
The minbar used by the Prophet was considered one of his relics endowed with his blessing.33 After the assassination of the third caliph ‘Uthman, the ancestor of the Umayyads, his blood-stained clothes were hung from the minbar in the Mosque of Medina. The governor of Medina, Marwan b. al-Hakam (cousin of ‘Uthman and later third Umayyad caliph), added six new steps to the minbar of the Prophet, giving it a total of eight steps (plus a seat) and rendering it immobile.34 When the capital of the caliphate was transferred from Medina to Damascus, the Umayyad caliph needed a minbar as a symbol of both political power and religious authority. The one he built was portable and probably closely resembled that of the Prophet before the six steps were added. Fifty years after the Prophet’s death, the main mosques in each province had their own minbar, built in imitation of the minbar of the Prophet, with or without the six additional steps. The steps, however, became an increasingly common feature. In order to move the minbars with eight steps, wheels had to be added. According to S. Carboni, this practice may seem senseless, since minbars were never moved within the mosque ... . Their position was fixed to the right of the mihrab ... . The main reason why minbars are movable in the Maghrib, therefore, is not because they regularly moved as part of their function but rather because they had to be out of sight when not in use. The opinion of Malikite jurists that the minbar should not intrude upon the floor space of the mosque may also have helped to foster the tradition.35
Heribert Busse has shown that the minbar of the Prophet was understood as the Medinese equivalent of the maqam Ibrahim, 36 the holy site in Mecca associated with Abraham. Ignaz Goldziher and Uri Rubin have analyzed the important place that the
32 Félix Hernández Jiménez (1959). “El almimbar móvil del siglo X en la Mezquita de Córdoba,” Al-Andalus XXIV, pp. 381-99, esp. 393; Maribel Fierro (2007). “The movable minbar in Cordoba”, Op Cit.: how the Umayyads of al-Andalus claimed the inheritance of the Prophet,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33, pp. 149-168.
33 Joseph W. Meri (2010). “Relics of Piety and Power in Medieval Islam,” Past and Present 10, Supp. 10, pp. 97-120, esp. 119.
34 Jean Sauvaget (1947). La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine. Étude sur les origines architecturales de la mosquée et de la basilique. Paris, esp. 87-9.
35 Stefano Carboni (1998), Historical and artistic significance of the minbar, in Jonathan Bloom et alii, The Minbar from the Kutubiyya Mosque. New York-Madrid, esp. 45-6. He follows Joseph Schacht (1957). “An unknown type of minbar and its historical significance,” Ars Orientalis 2, pp. 149-73.
36 Heribert Busse (1988). “Die Kanzel des Propheten im Paradisiesgarten,” Die Welt des Islams 28, pp. 99-111.
minbar occupied among the Umayyads’ emblems symbolizing their authority and power, and how they took special care to present themselves as the successors of the Prophets, with special emphasis on Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, and of course, Muhammad.37 Through their minbars, the Umayyads made visible their link with the Prophet: it was an emblem of prophethood, evoking at the same time the memory of the sacred spaces of Mecca and Medina. Because the minbar was such a powerful religious and political symbol, access to it must have been ardently sought after by those who laid claim to power, as it was from the minbar that allegiance to any new ruler was proclaimed. Storing the minbar in a closet may well have been a way of protecting it from rebels and dissidents, more than a practice stemming from a combination of Maliki doctrine and the custom of covering the Prophet’s minbar, as indicated by J. Schacht and S. Carboni. However, more than anything else, bringing the minbar out of the closet on Fridays produced a dramatic effect. It amounted to announcing the “presence” of the Prophet in the most solemn of Muslim rituals, the Friday prayer. If God manifested himself in the recitation of the Qur’an, the Prophet was present in every mosque through the replicas of his minbar, that is, those eight-step minbars whose upper portion represents the Prophetic pulpit. By treating the movable minbars as precious objects that needed to be protected in a special space and could only be shown at certain ritual times – that is, by treating them as if they were relics – they became just that. Thanks to the way they were preserved and displayed, they must have been understood as the Prophet’s minbar itself. When the Sunni ruler, be it himself or one of his delegates, stood on the minbar delivering the Friday sermon, he was standing in the place of the Prophet, as a firm endorsement of his religious and political authority. When the minbar appeared near the mihrab on Fridays, the presence of both the Umayyad caliph and the Prophet became patent among the believers, especially taking into account that both the caliph and the minbar entered the mosque through doors situated to the right of the mihrab.38
The Cordoban minbar should be understood as part of the recovery of the legacy (mirath) of the dynasty’s Syrian ancestors, which was a central element in the program of caliphal legitimization developed by the Umayyads of al-Andalus. The most well-known example of this policy from an artistic point of view was the mosaic tiling of the mihrab in the Cordoban mosque undertaken by al-Hakam II (r. 350/961-366/976), in imitation of what his ancestors had done in the mosques of Medina and Damascus, as well as in the Dome of the Rock.
37 Ignaz Goldziher (1967-1971). Muslim Studies, transl. by S. M. Stern of Muhammedanische Studien, 2 vols. London, esp. II, 49-52, 68-9; Uri Rubin (2003). “Prophets and caliphs: the Biblical foundations of the Umayyad authority,” in H. Berg (ed.), Method and theory in the study of Islamic origins. Leiden-Boston, pp. 73-99.
38 See the drawing in Félix Hernández Jiménez (1959). “El almimbar móvil del siglo X en la Mezquita de Córdoba,” Op. Cit., esp. 382.
The hadith in which the Prophet states that the space between his house and his minbar is one of the Gardens (riyad, sg. rawda) of Paradise has already been mentioned.39 According to several hadiths, the Rawda in Medina is the area that extends from the southern gallery of the mosque to the tomb of the Prophet in the east, which is the space located between the tomb and the Prophet’s minbar. The Cordoban Umayyads were buried in their palace adjoining the Friday mosque and their burial ground was also referred to as ‘rawda.’ As we have seen, the space where the minbar was put away was a closet built to the right of the mihrab, and to the right of both the closet and the mihrab was a passage connecting the mosque to the royal palace. If the minbar of the Friday mosque in Cordoba was suggested to be the actual minbar of the Prophet, the presence of a nearby rawda appears to have been an attempt by the Umayyads of Cordoba to evoke the location of the Prophet’s grave and his minbar, while at the same time implying that one of the Gardens of Paradise was located in Cordoba.40 Later, under Hisham II, a square cistern was built below the Mosque of Cordoba. Following the Prophetic saying, “my pulpit is by my basin”, this Umayyad cistern evoked the basin of Paradise, the meeting place on the Day of Resurrection, in yet another example of how the sacred geography of Medina was remapped onto Cordoba.
Medina was closely connected with the Umayyads. There, their relative ‘Uthman had been elected caliph by a shura, the same procedure said to have been followed when ‘Abd al-Rahman III was elected caliph.41 Four pages of the Qur’an belonging to the caliph ‘Uthman, stained with the blood shed when he was assassinated in Medina, were said to be kept in the Cordoban mosque, a relic of that past from which ‘Abd al-Rahman III and his successors derived their legitimacy as caliphs. This relic played a crucial role later on in the process of legitimization of the Almohad caliphs when they, in turn, attempted to link themselves with the Cordoban Umayyads.42 The inhabitants of Medina who supported the
39 See above note 18.
40 Maribel Fierro (2007). “The movable minbar in Cordoba…”, Op. Cit., esp. 164-5. This connection has also been made by E. Manzano in the paper he delivered in the Workshop Sacralizing the city in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, Hamburg University-Radboud University, May 20-21, 2022. For another connection with Paradise sought after by the Umayyads of al-Andalus, see Maribel Fierro (2017). “Madinat al-zahra’, Paradise and the Fatimids,” in S. Günther and T. Lawson (eds.), Roads to Paradise. Eschatology and concepts of the hereafter in Islam. Leiden, pp. 979-1009.
41 Maribel Fierro (1989). “Sobre la adopción del título califal por ‘Abd al-Rahman III,” Sharq al-Andalus VI, pp. 33-42, esp. 38.
42 Pascal Buresi (2008). “Une relique almohade: L’utilisation du Coran de la Grande mosquée de Cordoue (attribué à ‘Utman b. ‘Affan [644–656]),” in Lieux de cultes: aires votives, temples, églises, mosquées. IXe Colloque International sur l’Histoire et l’Archéologie de l’Afrique du Nord Antique et Médiévale, Tripoli, 19–25 février 2005, Paris, pp. 273-280 ; and of the same autor, (2010). “D’une Péninsule á l’autre: Cordoue, ‘Utman (644–656) et les arabes á l’époque almohade (XIIe–XIIIe siecle),” Al-Qantara 31, pp. 7-29. The source that mentions the presence of the four pages is late (6th/12th century), but it refers to an earlier
Prophet were known as the Ansar, the ‘Defenders’. The judge under ‘Abd al-Rahman III, the Berber Mundhir b. Sa‘id al-Balluti (d. 355/966), is said to have promoted the adoption of the nisba al-Ansari – derived from the name al-ansar – by those Andalusis who had no Arab tribal affiliation. The nisba al-Ansari in fact became very popular in al-Andalus,43 again suggesting that Medina had been reborn in the Islamic West.
Maliki legal doctrine was upheld by the Cordoban Umayyads as representing orthodoxy, with an emphasis on its connection with the Prophet’s town, Medina. The Umayyads of alAndalus were hostile to Hanafism, a legal doctrine that they saw as linked to their enemies, the Abbasids. Instead, they favoured the doctrines of Medinese scholars, and among them most especially those of Malik b. Anas, who in his writings made constant reference to the legal tradition and practice of Medina as that which best reflected the precedents established by the Prophet.44 Many Andalusis and Maghribis were alleged to have studied directly with Malik, and veneration for the Medinese scholar flourished in the Islamic West.45 The Malikis argued that they were closer to the Prophet’s Tradition (Sunna) than any other legal school because they were followers of Medinese legal practice (‘amal),46 and thus Cordoba was suggested to be a new Medina in terms of the soundness of the religious knowledge transmitted there. The connection ‘Malikism – Medina – Sunna’ also meant that Maliki scholars were considered to be the ones who maintained the Prophetic teachings in their purest form. This idea was powerfully conveyed in a vision in which Sahnun (d. 240/854) – the Qayrawani jurist whose work al-Mudawwana is one of the foundational texts of the Maliki legal school – was at work exhuming the Prophet, while others were busy shovelling dirt onto his grave. The man who had the vision later recounted it to Sahnun, adding the interpretation, “They are burying the sunna of the messenger of God and you are keeping it alive”.47
Yohanan Friedmann has studied the varied ways in which Muslims have tried to come to terms with the belief that Muhammad was the seal of the Prophets. Once the Prophet died, could there be a link between God and mankind, ensuring believers that they
one from the Umayyad period.
43 Maribel Fierro (2006). “The Ansaris, Nasir al-din, and the Nasrids in al-Andalus,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32, pp. 232-247.
44 Christopher Melchert (1999). “How Hanafism came to originate in Kufa and traditionalism in Medina,” Islamic law and society 6, pp. 318-47.
45 Abd al-Majid Turki (1971). “La vénération pour Malik et la physionomie du malikisme andalou,” Studia Islamica XXXIII, pp. 41-65.
46 Yasin Dutton (1999). The Origins of Islamic Law: The Qur’an, the Muwatta’ and Madinan ‘Amal. Surrey, UK; Umar F. Abd-Allah Wymann-Landgraf (2013). Malik and Medina: Islamic Legal Reasoning in the Formative Period. Leiden.
47 Ibn Juzayy (2019), Al-Qawanin al-fiqhiyya, transl. A. Yate. Norwich, esp. 94.
would succeed in carrying out God’s mandate? 48 Rulers in the Islamic world often tried to convince their subjects that they guaranteed such a link between God and mankind. The Shi‘i answer to these questions was that the charismatic imam belonging to Muhammad’s progeny assured such divine guidance. The Sunni answer involved an imam whose charisma did not go as far as that of the Shi‘is, and who shared the legacy of the Prophet with the scholars (‘ulama’). For all his limitations compared to the Shi‘i imam, the Sunni imam also had to convey a convincing right to religious and political authority. The Cordoban Umayyad caliphs claimed they were heirs to the Prophet’s legacy as religious and political guides of the Muslim community, and one of the ways they did this was by presenting their capital, Cordoba, as a new Medina, through similarities between the Cordoban mosque and that of Medina, through the new minbar that evoked that of the Prophet, and through the pages of the ‘Uthmanic codex that had been stained with the blood of their forefather, the third rightly-guided caliph, when he was killed in Medina. Moreover, the suggestion was made that the Rawda of Medina had been relocated to Cordoba, and that Andalusis were the new ansar. By proclaiming Malikism to be the official legal doctrine of the dynasty, and given that Malikism was connected with the town where Muhammad had acted as both a prophet and a statesman, they reinforced the idea that Medina had been relocated to Cordoba. Given that the Umayyads were the legitimate inheritors of the Messenger of God, it was as if the Prophet himself ruled over al-Andalus: the Umayyad Sunni caliph could well compete with his Fatimid counterpart. After the Umayyads, the Almohad caliphs - as they moved away from the original Mahdism of the movement that had led them to power - tried to re-enact the relocation of Medina in the Maghrib through their adoption of the ‘Uthmanic codex as a relic to be paraded through their realm, their adoption of the Almoravid minbar built as a replica of the Cordoban precedent, and their use of Malik’s Muwatta’ together with the ‘Book’ of their Mahdi in their parades. But the times were different: the Cordoban Umayyads had decorated the mihrab of their Friday mosque with spectacular mosaics thanks to Byzantine help, and this was a feat to which the Almohads could no longer aspire. Also, in the origins of the Almohad movement there was a local ‘Mecca’ (Igilliz, the birthplace of their Mahdi) and a new ‘Medina,’ Tinmal, where first the Mahdi was buried and after him the first three Almohad caliphs. The Almohads promoted pilgrimage to Tinmal and the visitation of the Mahdi’s grave, reflecting the wider local culture in which local holy men and their graves articulated the religiosity of the common folk. It was in this context and in order to counteract the pull of such beliefs that the Maghribi practice of sending letters to the Prophet’s grave in Medina originated, culminating with al-Jazuli’s book of prayers for the Prophet in which veneration for his grave and his Rawda acquired centrality. The
popularity of al-Jazuli’s work coincided the rise of Sharifism in what is now Morocco, that is, the articulation of a political culture in which rule was inextricably linked to the Prophetic lineage.
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Hiba Abid (2021). “Material Images and Mental Ziyara: Depicting the Prophet’s Grave in North African Devotional Books (Dala’il al-Khayrat)”, Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 1 (1-2), pp. 331–354.
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Pascal Buresi (2008). “Une relique almohade: L’utilisation du Coran de la Grande mosquée de Cordoue (attribué à ‘Utman b. ‘Affan [644–656])”, in Lieux de cultes: aires votives, temples, églises, mosquées. IXe Colloque International sur l’Histoire et l’Archéologie de l’Afrique du Nord Antique et Médiévale, Tripoli, 19–25 février 2005, Paris, pp. 273-280.
Pascal Buresi (2010). “D’une Péninsule á l’autre: Cordoue, ‘Utman (644–656) et les arabes á l’époque almohade (XIIe-XIIIe siecle)”, Al-Qantara 31, pp. 7-29.
Heribert Busse (1988). “Die Kanzel des Propheten im Paradisiesgarten”, Die Welt des Islams 28, pp. 99-111.
Stefano Carboni (1998), Historical and artistic significance of the minbar, in Jonathan Bloom et alii, The Minbar from the Kutubiyya Mosque. New York-Madrid.
Yasin Dutton (1999). The Origins of Islamic Law: The Qur’an, the Muwatta’ and Madinan Amal. Surrey, UK.
Maribel Fierro (1989). “Sobre la adopción del título califal por ‘Abd al-Rahman III”, Sharq al-Andalus VI, pp. 33-42.
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Maribel Fierro (2006). “The Ansaris, Nasir al-din, and the Nasrids in al-Andalus”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32, pp. 232-247.
Maribel Fierro (2007). “The movable minbar in Cordoba: how the Umayyads of al-Andalus claimed the inheritance of the Prophet”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33, pp. 149-168. Maribel Fierro (2011). “El tratado sobre el Profeta del cadí ‘Iyad y el contexto almohade”, in Legendaria Medievalia en honor de Concepción Castillo Castillo. Córdoba, pp. 19-34.
Maribel Fierro (2012). “Plants, Mary the Copt, Abraham, donkeys and knowledge: Again on Batinism during the Umayyad caliphate in al-Andalus”, in Difference and Dynamics in Islam. Festschrift for Heinz Halm on his 70th birthday. Würzburg, pp. 125-144.
Maribel Fierro (2017). “Madinat al-zahra’, Paradise and the Fatimids”, in S. Günther and T. Lawson (eds.), Roads to Paradise. Eschatology and concepts of the hereafter in Islam Leiden, pp. 979-1009.
Maribel Fierro (2023, forthcoming). “A Christian Iberian attack in Medina in the 12th century? Some keys to understand an unusual story”, in Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo (ed.), A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton. Leiden. Yohanan Friedmann (1989). Prophecy continuous. Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London.
Pilar Garrido (2008). “Traducción anotada de la Risalat al-i‘tibar de Ibn Masarra de Córdoba”, Estudios humanisticos, Filología 30, pp. 139-63.
Ignaz Goldziher (1967-1971). Muslim Studies, transl. by S. M. Stern of Muhammedanische Studien, 2 vols. London.
Denis Gril (2006). “Le corps du Prophète”, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, Le corps et le sacré en Orient musulman 113-15, pp. 37-57.
Leor Halevi (2007). Muhammad’s grave: Death rites and the making of Islamic society. New York.
Heinz Halm (1996). The Empire of the Mahdi. The Rise of the Fatimids, transl. Michael Bonner. Leiden.
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Aisha Hidayatullah (2010). “Mariyya the Copt: Gender, sex and heritage in the legacy of Muhammad’s umm walad”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21 (3), pp. 221-43.
Ibn Juzayy (2019), Al-Qawanin al-fiqhiyya, transl. A. Yate. Norwich.
Ibn al-Khatib (1988). Al-Ihata fi akhbar Gharnata: nusus jadida lam tunshar, ed. ‘Abd alSalam Shaqqur. Tetouan.
Ibn Waddah (1987), Kitab al-bida‘, ed. and transl. M. I. Fierro. Madrid, 1987.
Joseph Kenny (2002). “Ibn-Masarra: His Risala al-i‘tibar,’ Orita: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 34, pp. 1-26.
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Meir J. Kister (1996). “Sanctity joint and divided: On holy places in the Islamic tradition”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20, pp. 18-65.
Hassan Lachheb (2016). Dear Prophet: the tradition of sending letters to Muhammad and the making of the Maghribi Prophet. Ph.D. diss., Indiana University.
Jorge Lirola Delgado and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2012). Biblioteca de al-Andalus vol. 1. Almería.
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Christopher Melchert (1999). “How Hanafism came to originate in Kufa and traditionalism in Medina”, Islamic law and society 6, pp. 318-47.
Joseph W. Meri (2010). “Relics of Piety and Power in Medieval Islam”, Past and Present 10, Supp. 10, pp. 97-120.
Harry Munt (2014). The Holy City of Medina: Sacred Space in Early Islamic Arabia. Cambridge.
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Miklos Muranyi (2020). “Visited Places on the Prophet’s Track in Mecca and Medina”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 49, pp. 217-230.
A. W. Ould Sheikh and B. Saison (1987). “Vie(s) et mort(s) de al-Imam al-Hadrami. Autour de la posterité saharienne du mouvement almoravide (11e-17e s.)”, Arabica 34, pp. 48-79.
Moshe Perlmann (1958). “Asnawi’s tract against Christian officials”, in S. Löwinger, A. Scheiber and J. Somogyi (eds.), Ignace Goldziher memorial volume II. Jerusalem, pp. 172-208. Uri Rubin (2003). “Prophets and caliphs: the Biblical foundations of the Umayyad authority”, in H. Berg (ed.), Method and theory in the study of Islamic origins. LeidenBoston, pp. 73-99.
Jean Sauvaget (1947). La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine. Étude sur les origines architecturales de la mosquée et de la basilique. Paris.
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Abd al-Majid Turki (1971). “La vénération pour Malik et la physionomie du malikisme andalou”, Studia Islamica XXXIII, pp. 41-65.
Al-Turtushi (1990). Kitab al-hawadith wa-l-bida‘, ed. ‘Abd al-Majid Turki. Beirut, 1990). Al-Turtushi (1993), Kitab al-hawadith wa-l-bida‘, transl. and study M. I. Fierro. Madrid. Paul E. Walker (2003). “Purloined Symbols of the Past: The theft of souvenirs and sacred relics in the rivalry between the Abbasids and Fatimids”, in F. Daftary and J. Meri (eds.), Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam: Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung. London, pp. 364-87.
Jan Just Witkam (2007). “The battle of images: Mecca vs. Medina in the iconography of
the manuscripts of al-Jazuli’s Dala’il al-Khayrat”, in Judith Pfeiffer and Manfred Kropp (eds.), Theoretical Approaches to the Transmission and Edition of Oriental Manuscripts: Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Istanbul March 28-30, 2001. Würzburg, pp. 67-82, 295-300 (illustrations).
Josef Ženka (2021). “A Mamluk-Andalusi holograph manuscript of the former Marinid Chancellor Muhammad Ibn Hizb Allah al-Wadi Ashi (d. 788 H/1386 CE)”, in M. Fierro and M. Penelas (eds.), The Maghrib in the Mashriq. Travel, Knowledge and Identity. De Gruyter, pp. 481-516.
Maribel Fierro is Research Professor at the Institute for the Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean - CSIC. She has published on the political and intellectual history of the pre-modern Islamic West (al-Andalus and North Africa) with books such as ‘Abd al-Mu’min. Mahdism and caliphate in the Islamic West and ‘Abd al-Rahman III, the first Cordoban caliph (Oneworld 2021 and 2005), and The Almohad revolution (Ashgate, 2012).
She has edited The Routledge Handbook on Muslim Iberia (2020), Orthodoxy and heresy in Islam: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies (Routledge, 2013) and The Western Islamic world, eleventh-eighteenth centuries, vol. II of The New Cambridge History of Islam (2010).
Medina played a crucial role in the ways Muslims of the Islamic West constructed their religiosity and followed the law, as well as in the political legitimization of their rulers. This paper, building upon previous studies of mine, offers an overview of this crucial role. It includes an innovative practice, the sending of letters to be read at the Prophet’s grave in Medina, the development of a ‘virtual’ visitation of this grave, and a curious tale of how two Iberian Christians attempted to destroy it. Special attention is paid to how Cordoba was represented as a new Medina through its mosque, the minbar, the spread of the nisba ‘al-Ansari,’ and the adoption of the legal school founded by the Medinese scholar Malik b. Anas.
Medina. Cordoba. The Prophet’s grave. Minbar. Al-Ansari. Malikism.
Abdenour Padillo-Saoud. Escuela de Estudios Árabes (CSIC). Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente (CSIC). padillosaoud@eea.csic.es
Because the phenomenon of travel in search of knowledge has received considerable attention by specialists in Andalusi Studies due to its importance, publications on the subject abound. The emergence of digital databases1 that collect and systematize a vast amount of information scattered throughout the sources is now making it possible to contextualize information that had once appeared isolated, thus providing new elements for analysis, and making it possible to build a more accurate overview of this phenomenon. Interconnecting this information provides multiple possibilities for study, offering the researcher a large volume of data on the different aspects that make up a particular
* The research has been carried out in the framework of the following research projects and grants: PID2020116680GB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; “Local contexts and global dynamics: al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Islamic East (AMOI)” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, FFI2016-78878-R AEI/FEDER,UE (2017-2020), and co-directed by Maribel Fierro (ILC, CSIC) and Mayte Penelas (EEA, CSIC) and Grant BES-2017-081922 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by “ESF Investing in your future”. English revision by Nicholas Callaway. I wish to thank Prof. Maribel Fierro and Dr. Mayte Penelas for their helpful comments. I also thank Fundación Ibn Tufayl and Dr. Jorge Lirola for initially allowing me to work on this topic, which I now present in a much more developed form.
1 Fundamental for this study have been the databases HATA, https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/enlaces.php and Prosopografía de los ulemas de al-Andalus (PUA), https://www.eea.csic/pua/; also important, despite not being digitized, are Jorge Lirola and Puerta Vílchez J.M. (2004-2017). Biblioteca de al-Andalus. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl, 10 vols.; Manuela Marín (1990). Los ulemas de al-Andalus y sus maestros orientales, in María Luisa Ávila (ed.), Estudios onomástico-biográficos de al-Andalus, 3. Madrid: CSIC, pp. 257-306 and Mahmud ‘Ali Makki (1968). Ensayo sobre las aportaciones orientales en la España musulmana y su influencia en la formación de la cultura hispano-árabe. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos.
phenomenon. With regard to the rihla, this article will focus on the most relevant teachers from the Arabian Peninsula whom the Andalusis encountered during their journey to the East, as well as on the knowledge that the former were able to transmit to the latter.
As is well known, the transmission of knowledge in pre-modern Islamic societies was mainly characterized by a direct relationship between disciple and master. The ‘ulama’ (scholars) sought out the most reputable teachers of their time, and from them acquired a body of knowledge that they would later pass on to disciples of their own. The authors of biographical dictionaries recorded these exchanges in detail, through biographies describing the various teachers and disciples that each scholar had, since such lists could determine a scholar’s reputation.2
The period covered by this study (711-852) encompasses what can be understood as a formative period in Andalusi culture. This is the time when the socio-cultural bases that were to govern the period encompassing what we now call al-Andalus were established. The time-span concludes with the end of the rule of ‘Abd al-Rahman II (r. 822-852), which marked a turning point in the history of al-Andalus. During this process, travels in search of knowledge played a decisive role in the Islamization of the territory, and in the configuration of the political and social bases of a large part of Andalusi history. In turn, the peripheral situation of al-Andalus turned these travels into an important nexus with Dar al-Islam. That is, these travels constituted a fundamental element in the incorporation of this territory into a broader civilizational whole that, in the period under discussion, was beginning to shape the contours within which the different local identities interacted through a cultural language and a sense of common belonging.
The rihla fi talab al-‘ilm should not be separated from the Koranic precept of pilgrimage to Mecca. In most cases, Andalusi scholars took advantage of the trip to Mecca to visit the main centers of knowledge, where the most reputable masters were to be found.3 Trips to the East were a constant throughout the Andalusi era; however, the socio-political changes from one period to another modified the frequency and nature of these trips, although the primary objective of the search for knowledge remained fundamental, and the aforementioned implications were maintained.4
With the consolidation of Umayyad political power and the stabilization of the territory, travel to the East began to increase exponentially. Initially, in the period that concerns us, these trips reflected the dependence of al-Andalus on the centers of power
2 On this topic see J. Berkey (1992). The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
3 On pilgrimage during the pre-modern period see F. E. Peters (1994). The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 109-143.
4 María Luisa Ávila (2002). «The Search for Knowledge: Andalusi Scholars and their Travels to the Islamic East», Medieval Prosopography: History and Collective Biography. Special Issue: Arab-Islamic Medieval Culture, 23, pp. 125-140.
in the East,5 around which the most reputable scholars and the main cultural trends were grouped. Although with the development and consolidation of a properly Andalusi culture this dependence diminished, such travel continued to be frequent during the 10th and 11th centuries. During this period, the destinations of the Andalusis, which were initially concentrated in Egypt and the Hijaz, began to diversify.6 Contributing to this circumstance was the change of trend during the rule of ‘Abd al-Rahman II, as well as, on the one hand, the chronic fragmentation and consequent weakening that affected the Abbasid caliphate from the 9th century onward, and, on the other, the consolidation of the science of hadith which, once it took root in al-Andalus, led the Andalusis to seek out these traditions in different parts of the Islamic world, however remote they might be.7
During the rule of the Maghrebi dynasties – the Almoravids and Almohads – North Africa gained relevance as a favorite destination for Andalusi travelers. Likewise, the unstable domestic situation and the Christian advance from the North led Andalusi society to regard jihad as a priority with respect to the precept of pilgrimage, which may have influenced the decline in travel to the East.8 This context of instability and war can also be extended to the Nasrid period. However, during this time the trips once more became frequent, with the particularity that most of them were one-way trips to the East. It is obvious that, in the context of the Christian advance and the consequent loss of territory, an Andalusi diaspora was produced, with North Africa being the main destination, but with many of these Andalusis eventually settling in the East.9
It is important to point out that the sources from this initial period that provide us with information about these travels do not exhibit the precision and systematicity that such sources would later acquire, as the different literary genres and especially the Islamic
5 Significant in this regard are the consultations that some Andalusis sent to their Eastern masters on legal issues that generated doubts among Andalusi scholars; see Al-Qadi ‘Iyad (1983). Tartib al-Madarik, Muhammad b. Tawit al-Tangi (ed.). Rabat: Wizarat al-Awqaf wa-l-Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 4, p. 118.
6 The fact that these trips were initially concentrated in Egypt and the Hijaz may have been the consequence of the rivalry between the Umayyads and the Abbasids. During the rule of ‘Abd al-Rahman II and the relative opening that al-Andalus experienced with respect to the East, travel to Iraq became increasingly frequent; see Isabel Fierro (1989). «The Introduction of hadith in al-Andalus (2nd/8th-3rd/9th centuries)», Der Islam, 66 (1), pp. 77-78 and Luis Molina (1988). Lugares de destino de los viajeros andalusíes en el Ta’rikh de Ibn al-Faradi, in Manuela Marín, (ed.), Estudios Onomásticos-bibliográficos de al-Andalus, 1. Madrid: CSIC, pp. 585-610.
7 Isabel Fierro (1989). Op. Cit., pp. 68-93.
8 The Maghrebi al-Wansharisi (d. 914/1508) collects in his work a number of fatwas issued by Andalusi scholars of these periods on this matter: al-Wansharisi (1980). Mi‘yar al-Mu‘rib. Rabat: Wizarat al-Awqaf wa-l-Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 1, pp. 432-434. See also Jocelyn Hendrickson (2016). «Prohibiting the Pilgrimage: Politics and Fiction in Maliki Fatwas» , Islamic Law and Society 23, Leiden: Brill, pp. 182–238.
9 These data match those provided by Prosopografía de los ulemas de al-Andalus (PUA), https://www.eea. csic/pua/ [Consulted on 10 May 2021] and Jorge Lirola (2013). Biblioteca de al-Andalus. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl, B, pp. 54-60. See also Bárbara Boloix, Viajes con retorno y sin retorno: Andalusíes hacia la Dar al-Islam en el s. XIII, in Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala and Dolores Rodríguez Gómez (eds.) Entre Oriente y Occidente: Ciudades y viajeros en la Edad Media. Granada: Universidad de Granada, pp. 71–102.
sciences developed and became consolidated. Therefore, we find biographies of scholars in which we are only told that they traveled, without specifying any destination or whether they studied with any teachers during their travels. In other biographies, the list of teachers is incomplete or, on the contrary, includes teachers whose relationship with the scholar in question is implausible for various reasons.
In this sense, it should be borne in mind that during this early period the formal criteria articulating the transmission of knowledge in the Islamic world were still taking shape, encouraged by the development of the science of hadith, and would not attain their characteristic rigidity until several decades later.
In this study we have generally respected the information offered by the biographical dictionaries without assessing the possible problems that this may pose, except in those cases where such information is clearly implausible.
For the period 711-852, 38 masters in the Arabian Peninsula have been identified as having had at least one disciple from al-Andalus. The number of quantified Andalusis who traveled to the East amounts to 83, while of these there are 10 about whom the sources do not specify whether they went there specifically to study with an Eastern scholar. In relation to the destinations preferred by these Andalusis, we can observe in the following map that the city of Medina emerges as the main destination, with 47 visitors, ahead of Cairo, with 41, and Mecca, with 31.
Figure 1: Map of the destinations of Andalusi travelers to the East between 711-852, in Prosopografía de los ulemas de al-Andalus (PUA), https://www.eea.csic/pua/ [Consulted on 10 May 2021].
It should be noted that in all probability the Andalusis who arrived in Medina must also have visited Mecca, although their biographers do not always mention this city. To understand these data, it is necessary to dwell, if only briefly, on the figure of Malik b. Anas (d. 179/795-796) and the importance in al-Andalus of the legal school that arose from his teachings. Of the 83 Andalusis we have identified, 30 were students of Malik himself, according to the sources. Of these 30 disciples, 17 had only Malik as their teacher. About some of them, the only information offered by the sources is that they studied with the famed scholar of Medina. However, most of these Andalusi disciples are false attributions that, for different reasons, were fabricated by the authors of certain biographical dictionaries.10
The spread and consolidation of Malikism in al-Andalus came about through the Eastern disciples of Malik (mainly Egyptians but also Medinese),11 who were teachers of the Andalusi scholars. It can be seen from the data how Egypt already in this early period begins to emerge as the intellectual center of the Islamic world. Therefore, it is not surprising that immediately after Malik’s time, the masters with the most Andalusi disciples were his direct disciples. Among these, the Egyptians stand out: ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn al-Qasim (d. 191/806) with 14 disciples, ‘Abd Allah Ibn Wahb (d. 197/ 813) with 13, and Asbagh Ibn al-Faraj (d. 225/839) with 12. It is evident that, after the death of Malik b. Anas himself, Andalusis continued to seek out his disciples, whether in Egypt or in the Hijaz, as we shall see below.
Despite this, the importance of the Hijaz in this period is plain to see. Leaving aside the figure of Malik and the problems posed by his relationship with the Andalusi scholars, the data provided by the sources on these masters of the Hijaz are as follows:
Of the 38 masters we have identified, 24 have only one Andalusi disciple in this period. Generally, these masters belong to a very early period – the late 8th or early 9th century –when travel was still limited. Most of these master-disciple relationships are problematic because of the chronology. For example, among these teachers are some tabi‘un such as Abu Mu‘ammar ‘Abbad b. ‘Abd al-Samad (8th c.), a hadith scholar whom some sources, such as the Ta’rikh of al-Dhahabi, tell us that he transmitted from some companions of the Prophet, among them the Prophet’s servant Anas b. Malik (d. 100-101/712);12 or descendants of the central figures of Islam such as ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Umar al-‘Umari (d.
10 José López Ortiz (1930) in his classic study («Recepción de la escuela malequí en España», AHDE, 7, pp. 1-161) already called attention to this problem.
11 On this topic see Alfonso Carmona (2005). The introduction of Malik´s teachings in al-Andalus and Maribel Fierro (2005). Proto-Malikis, Malikis and reformed Malikis, in P. Bearman, R. Peters, F. E. Vogel (eds.). The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 41-56 y 57-76, respectively.
12 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Ta’rikh al-Islam, Bashshar ‘Awwad Ma‘ruf (ed.). Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 4, pp. 448-449.
171/787-8), a descendant of the caliph ‘Umar.13 Similarly problematic because of the dates is the relationship with various Eastern scholars who, in turn, were teachers of pioneering figures of Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence), such as Malik or Abu Hanifa, as is the case with ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Abi Husayn b. al-Harith (8th c.).
Within this group we can establish another category of teachers who were much less renowned and were not among those most preferred by the Andalusis. The most striking case is that of Malik’s secretary, Ibn Abi Habib al-Katib (d. 218/833-4).14 If we take into account the predilection of the Andalusis for Malik’s disciples, it is strange that Ibn Abi Habib, being the secretary of the latter and one of the transmitters of his work al-Muwatta’, only counted a single Andalusi among his disciples. However, the sources provide some possible reasons, suggesting that Malik’s secretary was considered unreliable, and that he falsified the contents of his transmissions, such that many of his contemporaries did not accept his transmissions. One of Malik’s disciples, Yahya Ibn Bukayr (231/845), claimed that Ibn Abi Habib’s transmission of the Muwatta’ was the worst he had ever heard.15 Al-Qadi ‘Iyad in his Tartib al-Madarik reproduces the words of the Andalusi Yahya b. Yahya, who states, “I bribed Ibn Abi Habib with a thousand dirhams to convey to me the words of Malik, he conveyed to me a thousand hadiths”.16 The Andalusis must have caught wind of this master’s reputation, which is why the sources only attribute to him one Andalusi disciple, Yahya Ibn Muzayn (d. 259/873), from whom, according to ‘Iyad, he transmitted his recension of the Muwatta’, although this seems not to have circulated widely in al-Andalus.17
With respect to the teachings that the Andalusis received from this group of teachers, the sources are not very explicit, especially in the case of teachers belonging to early periods. Islamic sciences, mainly fiqh at first, and later the hadith and Qur’anic sciences, were the disciplines most in demand among Andalusis. Generally, the early Andalusis favored the juridical opinions of the scholars of Medina. Apart from the Muwatta’, we find other works that these masters composed and that could have been studied by these Andalusis.
For example, the jurist and mufti of Medina ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Abi l-Zinad (d. 174/790-1), teacher of the Andalusi Ziyad Shabtun (d. 193/808-9, 199/814-5 or 204/81920),18 composed a book entitled K. Ra’y al-Fuqaha’ al-Sab‘a min Ahl al-Madina wa ma Ikhtalafu fi-hi (Book of the opinion of the seven jurists of Medina and their divergences).19
13 Ibidem, 4, pp. 663-666.
14 Idem, 5, pp. 290-292.
15
Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani (1993). Tahdhib al-Tahdahib. Cairo: Dar al-Kitab al-Islami, 2, p. 181.
16 Al-Qadi ‘Iyad (1983). Op. Cit., 3, pp. 167-168.
17 Idem, 4, p. 238.
18
Christopher Melchert (2018). Ibn Abi l-Zinad, in Encyclopaedia of Islam 3, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733912_ei3_COM_32121 [Consulted online on 12 May 2021].
19 This work must have contained the transmissions and authoritative opinion on legal matters of the socalled “seven jurists of Medina”. Ch. Pellat (2012). Fukaha’ al-Madina al-Sab‘a, in Encyclopaedia of Islam 2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8553 [Consulted online on 12 May 2021].
We do not know whether Shabtun studied this particular book, but it does give us clues as to the possible teachings that must have been transmitted to him by this master of Medina. Another interesting case is that of the teacher Muhammad Ibn Abi Dhi’b (d. 158-9/7757), a prestigious scholar from Medina who was considered by some contemporaries to be superior to Malik in his knowledge of tradition.20 According to Ibn Nadim in his Fihrist, he composed a K. al-Sunan whose contents were included in later fiqh books,21 although most sources do not attribute any works to him. Ibn Abi Dhib had as disciples the Andalusi al-Ghazi b. Qays (d. 199/814-5), who shares with Shabtun the honor of being a pioneer in importing the Muwatta’ into al-Andalus.
Once travels started to become more frequent, teachers from the Arabian Peninsula began to receive Andalusi disciples in greater numbers. The most popular Arabian masters among the Andalusis for the period covered in this article were, unsurprisingly, the disciples of Malik. The master with the largest number of Andalusi disciples was Abu Mus‘ab Mutarrif b. ‘Abd Allah (d. 829-30 or 834-5).22 This faqih of Medina had 10 Andalusi disciples, among whom figures such as ‘Abd al-Malik b. Habib (d. 238/853), Yahya Ibn Muzayn (d. 259/873) or Aban Ibn Dinar (d. 262/876) stand out. Mutarrif, who was Malik’s nephew and studied under his uncle for 17 years, came to transmit a recension of the Muwatta’ that circulated in al-Andalus, where it was transmitted by the faqih Muhammad Ibn Matruh (d. 271/884), a disciple of Mutarrif in Medina, who passed it on to his Andalusi disciples Muhammad b. ‘Umar b. Lubaba of Cordoba (d. 314/926), and Ibn Futays of Elvira (d. 319/931). Thanks to the HATA database we can now establish the following chain of transmission:
Ibn Matruh — Ibn Lubaba — Abu Khalid Ahmad b. Nasr al-Qurtubi (a qadi from Jaén, d. 370/981).23
This is one example of how a direct transmission reached al-Andalus from the Arabian Peninsula. It is well known that different recensions of the Muwatta’ circulated in al-Andalus, but taking into account that the recension of Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythi (d. 234/849) was the one that ended up spreading and eclipsing the rest, it is of interest to be able to identify the route of other recensions in Andalusi territory.24 There were probably other chains of transmission of Mutarrif’s Muwatta’ recension, even more so if we take into account how many disciples he had, but the sources only allow us to identify this one.
20 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 4, pp. 203-6.
21 Ibn Nadim (1997). Fihrist, Ibrahim Ramadan (ed.). Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, p. 277.
22 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 5, pp. 458-459; Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani (1993). Op. Cit., 10, pp. 175-176.
23 HATA, III, 111.5, 121.7 and 204.1. https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/enlaces.php [Consulted on 15 May 2021]
24 On the transmission of this work in al-Andalus see José María Fórneas (1992). Para un estudio del Kitab al-Muwatta, en al-Andalus: las riwayat de ‘Abd al-Haqq ibn ‘Atiyya, in Actas del II Coloquio Hispano-Marroquí de Ciencias Históricas. Historia, ciencia y sociedad (Granada, 6-10 noviembre de 1989). Madrid: AECI, pp. 197-216.
The master with the next-largest number of Andalusi disciples in this period was Sufyan b. ‘Uyayna (d. 814).25 This scholar was originally from Kufa, but settled in Mecca, where he achieved great prestige as a hadith scholar and exegete. We have identified six Andalusis who studied with him, the foremost among them being Ziyad Shabtun, Yahya b. Yahya alLaythi and Abu Musa al-Hawwari (d. after 238/852).
Ibn ‘Uyayna’s status as an exegete, and his teachings in this discipline, must have permeated through his Andalusi disciples, especially Abu Musa al-Hawwari, who is considered the first author of an original tafsir (exegesis) in al-Andalus,26 most likely inspired by the teachings of this master. We have evidence that Ibn ‘Uyayna’s Tafsir circulated in al-Andalus, as al-Dhahabi records a chain of transmission of this work in the second half of the 10th century:
Qasim b. Asbagh (d. 340/951) — Ahmad b. Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Barr (d. 338/950) — Ibn Jasur (d. 401/1011).27
Ibn ‘Uyayna’s teachings were also present in his facet as hadith scholar. Apart from the Tafsir, this teacher also transmitted an important corpus of hadith. These traditions were widespread throughout al-Andalus for a long period of time, as evidenced by the numerous transmissions mentioned in the sources, proof of which is that a late author such as Ibn Bashkuwal (d. 578/1183) composed a work entitled Akhbar Ibn ‘Uyayna dedicated to his transmissions, as he did with other masters as well.28
Based on this information, it can be affirmed that Ibn ‘Uyayna was a teacher highly valued by the Andalusis, and that his teachings played an important role in the formation of the Andalusi intellectual landscape, especially in relation to Qur’anic exegesis.
There are five Andalusi disciples who studied under two teachers from Medina, the mufti ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn al-Majishun(d. 212/827)29 and Malik’s disciple, Abu ‘Amr Ibn Kinana (d. 185-6/806-7).30 Although the sources do not attribute written work to them, Ibn al-Majishun was the son of a key figure in the dissemination of Medinan juristic opinion, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Majishun (d. 164/780-1), who composed several works on fiqh 31 There is
25
Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 4, pp. 1110-1116; Ibn Nadim (1997). Op. Cit., p. 278; Susan A. Spectorsky (2012). Sufyan b. ‘Uyayna, in Encyclopaedia of Islam 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_7131 [Consulted online on 20 May 2021].
26 Jorge Lirola (2012). Biblioteca de al-Andalus. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl, 1, pp. 431-432.
27
28
Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 9, p. 27.
Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 12, p. 613.
29 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 5, p. 382; al-Safadi (2000). Al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, Ahmad Arana’ut and Turki Mustafa (ed.). Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-Arabi, 19, p. 120.
30 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 4, pp. 923-924; Qasim ‘Ali Sa‘d (2002). Jamhara Tarajim al-fuqaha’ al-Malikiyya. Abu Dabi: Dar al-Buhuth li-l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya wa Ihya’ al-Turath, 2, p. 831.
31 Miklos Muranyi (2009). Al-Majishun, in Encyclopaedia of Islam 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ ei3_COM_22884 [Consulted online on 25 May 2021]. These works have been preserved in fragmentary form in some manuscripts. Miklos Muranyi edited one of these manuscripts on the pilgrimage; see Ibn al-Majishun (2007). Kitab al-Hajj min Kutub ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. ‘Abd Allah b. Abi Salama al-Majishun, Bei-
evidence of the transmission of these works in al-Andalus through Muhammad b. Futays,32 one of whose teachers was ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Ibrahim b. Budayr (d. 258/872), a disciple of Ibn al-Majishun.
Of the rest of the masters we can highlight some figures who, despite not having had a large number of Andalusi disciples, were responsible for works and teachings that had an important impact in al-Andalus. Prominent among these is al-Qa‘nabi (d. 221/836), an Iraqi scholar who settled in the Hijaz.33 This master was a disciple of Malik, and his recension of the Muwatta’, considered by many scholars to be one of the best transmissions of this work, circulated widely in al-Andalus.34 Related to Malik’s work, the Medinan master ‘Abd Allah Ibn Nafi‘ al-Sa’igh (d. 186/802)35 composed a Tafsir of the Muwatta’ that was transmitted in al-Andalus by Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythi.36
Another important figure was an exegete of Christian origin from Mecca, ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Jurayh (d. 150/767-8), who had three Andalusi disciples, despite living in a very early period. Some sources consider him to be the first to have put into writing a work on the Islamic tradition, namely his Kitab al-Sunan 37 His works, the Kitab al-Sunan and a Tafsir of the Qur’an, do not appear in the sources as works transmitted in al-Andalus. However, his Andalusi disciple al-Ghazi b. Qays pioneered the introduction of the discipline of Qur’anic readings in al-Andalus, most likely under the influence of this teacher, among others.38
Another important teacher for Andalusi intellectual activity was the Qur’an reciter Nafi‘ Ibn Abi l-Nu‘man (d. 96/785). Sources attribute to him two Andalusi disciples, al-Ghazi b. Qays and Yahya b. Yahya. However, on the basis of the chronology, it is unlikely that the latter studied with him. Everything seems to indicate that this attribution was aimed at building up the reputation of Yahya b. Yahya, the architect of the consolidation of Malikism in al-Andalus, since the Qur’anic reading of Nafi‘ was the one that ended up prevailing in
rut: Dar Ibn Hazm.
32 HATA, III, 121.1. https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/enlaces.php [Consulted on 25 May 2021]. This reference attributes the authorship of these works to his son, ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn al-Majishun, on the basis of information provided by sources, specifically the biographical dictionary of Ibn Harith al-Khushani (1992). Akhbar al-fuqaha’ wa-l-muhaddithin. María Luisa Ávila and Luis Molina (eds.). Madrid: CSIC/ICMA, p. 153. We understand this as a confusion on the part of the Andalusi author or his sources of information.
33 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 5, pp. 610-612; Ibn Khallikan (1972). Wafayat al-A‘yan. Ihsan ‘Abbas (ed.). Beirut: Dar Sadr, p. 40.
34 This recension is mentioned many times in the list of works studied and transmitted in al-Andalus. Mentions go up toward the end of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula; see HATA, III, 1281.58 and 1289.11. https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/index.html [Consulted on 1 June 2021].
35 There was confusion in al-Andalus between this author and his brother, as discussed by al-Qadi ‘Iyad (1983). Op. Cit., 1, pp. 16-17, and as we have been able to ascertain based on the transmissions consulted in the Andalusi sources for this article. On this master, see al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 5, pp. 103-104.
36 Al-Qadi ‘Iyad (1983). Op. Cit., 3, p. 130.
37 Al-Dhahabi (2003). Op. Cit., 3, pp. 919-921; Ibn Khallikan (1972). Op. Cit., 3, p. 164.
38 On the development of this discipline in al-Andalus Cristina de la Puente (2011). «Studies on the Transmission of ‘Qur’anic Readings’ (Qira’at) in al-Andalus», Asian Research Trends. New Series 6, pp. 51-63.
al-Andalus – and in the Maghreb continues to be the official reading to this day.
Finally, with regard to jurisprudence, it is necessary to mention the figure of the Meccan-based Iraqi scholar Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/777-8).39 Although he had just three direct Andalusi disciples, his teachings came to be highly valued in al-Andalus and, indeed, throughout the Islamic world.40 The sources state that al-Thawri was superior to Malik and Abu Hanifa, but since, unlike them, a school was not articulated around his teachings, his prestige waned with the passage of time.
This master composed several works on different subjects, and in al-Andalus his Kitab al-Adab (Book of Belles-lettres) was also transmitted.41 The other work for which there is evidence of transmission in al-Andalus is his al-Jami‘ al-Kabir, which must have been a compendium of hadith transmitted by al-Thawri. It was widespread in al-Andalus, as evidenced by the numerous transmissions recorded in the sources. He is also credited with the composition of a work on religious precepts and a minor compendium on hadith.
This article has offered an overview of the importance that the Arabian masters had for the formation of Andalusi culture in the early period of its history, when the main destinations of the rihla fi talab al-‘ilm were the Hijaz and Egypt. The Arabian Peninsula acquired a privileged place as a destination for the Andalusis, who for different reasons were inclined toward the legal tradition of this territory, and sought out the living repositories of this tradition, with a predilection for the disciples of Malik b. Anas.
The travels of these Andalusis not only shaped the intellectual panorama of alAndalus, but at the individual level also constituted a differential factor for the social promotion of scholars aiming to rise among the ranks of their peers. The journey itself, together with the possibility of acquiring the teachings of the most renowned masters of the Islamic world, who in this first period were concentrated in the main centers of Eastern knowledge, contributed to the social prestige of these scholars once back in alAndalus. Through the data, it has been possible to ascertain that, upon their return, a large number of Andalusi scholars held important government posts, mainly as qadis of important cities. However, these data merely suggest this connection between travel and professional mobility during this period, and further study will be required in order to
39 H. P. Raddatz. Sufyan al-Thawri in Encyclopaedia of Islam 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_ SIM_7130 [Consulted online on 2 June 2021].
40 The transmissions of his works, especially those related to hadith, were widely disseminated, as can be seen from the sources, and are traceable to late authors such as Ibn Jabir al-Wadi ‘Ashi (d. 749/1348). See HATA, II, 1074.83. https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/index.html [Consulted on 2 June 2021].
41 Idem. II, 24.4. https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/index.html [Consulted on 2 June 2021] and Ibn Khayr, Fahrasat Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili, Bashshar and Muaammad ‘Awad Ma‘ruf (eds.). Tunis: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, pp. 340-341.
determine the extent of this relationship.42
The prestige that these trips provided may have motivated the exaggerated lists of teachers and false attributions. However, with the development of the science of hadith these irregularities became more nuanced.
Finally, with the development of Islamic sciences and the consolidation of al-Andalus and its consequent opening during the rule of ‘Abd al-Rahman II, travel destinations began to diversify and the Arabian Peninsula began to progressively lose weight as a cultural center among Andalusis.
María Luisa Ávila (2002). «The Search for Knowledge: Andalusi Scholars and their Travels to the Islamic East», Medieval Prosopography: History and Collective Biography. Special Issue: Arab-Islamic Medieval Culture, 23, pp. 125-140.
Jonathan Berkey (1992). The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Bárbara Boloix (2005), Viajes con retorno y sin retorno: Andalusíes hacia la Dar al-Islam en el s. XIII, in Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala and Dolores Rodríguez Gómez (eds.) Entre Oriente y Occidente: Ciudades y viajeros en la Edad Media. Granada: Universidad de Granada, pp. 71–102.
Alfonso Carmona (2005). The introduction of Malik´s teachings in al-Andalus, in P. Bearman, R. Peters, F. E. Vogel (eds.). The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 41-56.
Al-Dhahabi (2003). Ta’rikh al-Islam, Bashshar ‘Awwad Ma‘ruf (ed.). Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 17 vols.
Encyclopaedia of Islam: second edition. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (eds.). https://referenceworks--brillonline--com.csic. debiblio.com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2; Three. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson (eds.). https://referenceworks--brillonline-com.csic.debiblio.com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3.
María Isabel Fierro (1989). «The Introduction of hadith in al-Andalus (2nd/8th-3rd/9th centuries)», Der Islam, 66 (1), pp. 68-93.
María Isabel Fierro (2005). Proto-Malikis, Malikis and reformed Malikis, in P. Bearman, R.
42 The following study on professional mobility among scholars has recently been published: Hernández López, A. (2021). Mobility among the Andalusi qudat: Social Advancement and Spatial Displacement in a Professional Context, in M. El-Merheb and M. Berriah (eds.), Professional Mobility in Islamic Societies (700–1750). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 131-156. Likewise, Manuela Marín addressed this issue through various examples collected in biographical dictionaries, see Manuela Marín (2012). Movilidad social y ciencias islámicas: ejemplos biográficos andalusíes de la Baja Edad Media (siglos XII–XIV), in Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar and María Filomena Lopes de Barros (eds.), Categorias sociais e mobilidade urbana na Baixa Idade Média: Entre o Islão e a Cristandade. Évora: Publicações do Cidehus, pp. 11–34.
Peters, F. E. Vogel (eds.). The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 57-76.
José María Fórneas (1992). Para un estudio del Kitab al-Muwatta, en al-Andalus: las riwayat de ‘Abd al-Haqq Ibn ‘Atiyya, in Actas del II Coloquio Hispano-Marroquí de Ciencias Históricas. Historia, ciencia y sociedad (Granada, 6-10 noviembre de 1989). Madrid: AECI, pp. 197-216.
HATA, https://www.eea.csic.es/red/hata/enlaces.php Adday Hernández López (2021). Mobility among the Andalusi qudat: Social Advancement and Spatial Displacement in a Professional Context, In M. El-Merheb and M. Berriah (eds.), Professional Mobility in Islamic Societies (700–1750). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 131-156.
Jocelyn Hendrickson (2016). «Prohibiting the Pilgrimage: Politics and Fiction in Maliki Fatwas» , Islamic Law and Society, 23, Leiden: Brill, pp. 182–238.
Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani (1993). Tahdhib al-Tahdhib. Cairo: Dar al-Kitab al-Islami, 15 vols. Ibn Harith al-Khushani (1992). Akhbar al-fuqaha’ wa-l-muhaddithin, Maria Luisa Ávila y Luis Molina (eds.). Madrid: CSIC/ICMA.
Ibn Kallikan (1972). Wafayat al-A‘yan, Ihsan ‘Abbas (ed.). Beirut: Dar Sadr, 8 vols. Ibn Khayr (2009). Fahrasat Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili, Bashshar and Muhammad ‘Awad Ma‘ruf (eds.). Tunis: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami,
Ibn Nadim (1997). Fihrist, Ibrahim Ramadan (ed.). Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa.
Jorge Lirola and Puerta Vílchez (2004-2017). Biblioteca de al-Andalus. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl, 10 vols.
José López Ortiz (1930). «Recepción de la escuela malequí en España», AHDE, 7, pp. 1-161. Manuela Marín (1990). Los ulemas de al-Andalus y sus maestros orientales, in María Luisa Ávila (ed.). Estudios onomástico-biográficos de al-Andalus, 3. Madrid: CSIC, pp. 257-306.
Manuela Marín (2012). Movilidad social y ciencias islámicas: ejemplos biográficos andalusíes de la Baja Edad Media (siglos XII–XIV), in Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar and María Filomena Lopes de Barros (eds.), Categorias sociais e mobilidade urbana na Baixa Idade Média: Entre o Islão e a Cristandade. Évora: Publicações do Cidehus, 11–34.
Mahmud ‘Ali Makki (1968). Ensayo sobre las aportaciones orientales en la España musulmana y su influencia en la formación de la cultura hispano-árabe. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos.
Luis Molina (1988). Lugares de destino de los viajeros andalusíes en el Ta’rikh de Ibn al-Faradi, in Manuela Marín, (ed.). Estudios Onomásticos-bibliográficos de al-Andalus, 1. Madrid: CSIC, pp. 585-610.
Al-Majishun (2007). Kitab al-Hajj min Kutub ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. ‘Abd Allah b. Abi Salama al-Majishun. Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm.
Francis Edward Peters (1994). The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Prosopografía de los ulemas de al-Andalus (PUA), https://www.eea.csic/pua/ Cristina de la Puente (2011). «Studies on the Transmission of ‘Qur’anic Readings’ (Qira’at) in al-Andalus», Asian Research Trends. New Series 6, pp. 51-63.
Al-Qadi ‘Iyad (1983). Tartib al-Madarik, Muhammad b. Tawit al-Tanji (ed.). Rabat: Wizarat al-Awqaf wa-l-Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 8 vols.
Qasim ‘Ali Sa‘d (2002). Jamhara Tarajim al-fuqaha’ al-Malikiyya. Abu Dabi: Dar alBuhuth li-l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya wa Ihya’ al-Turath, 2 vols.
Al-Safadi (2000). Al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, Ahmad Arana’ut y Turki Mustafa (ed.). Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 29 vols.
Al-Wansharisi (1981). Al-Mi‘yar al-Mu‘rib. Muhammad Hajji (ed.). Rabat: Wizarat alAwqaf wa-l-Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 13 vols.
Abdenour Padillo-Saoud is a predoctoral fellow at the School of Arabic Studies, belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). His research focuses on the historiography of the pre-modern Islamic world. He is currently working on his PhD thesis, which deals with the impact of Andalusi intellectual activity on the Mamluk historiography of the Bahri period (1250-1382). He is part of the research project “Al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Islamic East: mobility, migration and memory”. He has several publications on the history of al-Andalus and the process of transmission of historical knowledge to the Islamic East.
This paper aims to provide an overview of the phenomenon of the rihla fi talab al-‘ilm (the journeys in search of knowledge) to the Arabian Peninsula that Andalusi sholars undertook during the first centuries of Muslim rule of the Iberian Peninsula. Through some examples, we will analyze the importance that the masters of the Arabian Peninsula had for the formation of early al-Andalus, as well as the type of knowledge that these masters transmitted to their disciples and that ended up taking root in al-Andalus, forming the basis from which an Andalusi culture of its own developed. For this purpose, we have analyzed the information provided by the databases on the Andalusi period, the Andalusi sources themselves and the most relevant works on the subject. The article presented below is the result of the compilation, study and analysis of the data provided by all these sources.
Rihla, Transmission of Knowledge, Arabian Teachers, Early al-Andalus.
Jaafar Ben El Haj Soulami. ‘Abd al-Malik as-Saadi University, Tetouan.
introduction: The conquest of al-Andalus, which took place in 92H / 711CE, was an Arab-Berber tribal conquest par excellence. Historically, any Muslim army since the first Muslim conquests was a tribal army. As a result, tribalism created an almost sacred general culture that rightly or wrongly gave tribes an “official version” of their origins, divisions, and tribal subdivisions.
Once settled in the Iberian Peninsula, the conquering Arab and Berber tribes continued to live their tribalism and tribal culture in all its forms. Their political and symbolic alliances became with time a “genealogical culture”, which was evident in the individual masculine lineage in the historical, biographical sources and documents, and in the genealogical books.
It is to report that this “genealogical culture” was present in the early Andalusi writings, those of Ibn Habib, (238H / 853CE), as well as in the latest Andalusi writings, those of Ibn ‘Abd al-Rafi‘. (d. 1052H / 1642-1643CE). This “genealogical culture” was considered at the time as a “science”, and was introduced as “science” into the books of Islamic law2 and the books of the theory of science.3
1 I would like, first of all, to thank my friend, Eric Calderwood, Professor at Illinois University, for the linguistic revision which he carried out very kindly to this article.
2 See, for example, Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi al-Garnati (1354H / 1935) Al-Qawanin al-Fiqhiyya. Ed. Muhammad Bardalla Fes, al-Maktaba al-Adabiyya, p. 421
3 See, for example, Haji Khalifa (Katib Celebi) (1941) Kashf al-Zunun, ‘An Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun Istanbul, Matba’at al-Ma’arif, 1: 178-180; Ja‘far Ibn al-Hajj al-Sulami (1439H / 2018) ‘Ilm al-Ansab fi
My focus in this essay will be on the emergence of “genealogical culture” or the beginning of “the science of genealogies” in al-Andalus as an expression of a deep cultural affiliation, (whether real or factious), to the Arabian Peninsula during the Umayyad period, (138-423h/756-1031) and, more precisely, during the first Umayyad emirate period, that is, from the beginning of al-Andalus until the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman II. (138-238H / 756-852CE)
It is time to detect and analyze the genealogical data, not to prove that it is false, or to prove its biblical origins, which is a partial or totally tautology, but to detect the birth of the genealogical ideas in a well-defined historical context. We could start with Ibn Habib (238H / 853CE), the oldest historian-genealogist of al-Andalus, and be content with his work.
Ibn Habib al-Sulami was certainly one of the oldest Andalusi writers and the most important figures of the first generations of Andalusi “‘ulamas”, and also one of the oldest Arab authors whose works have come down to us. He was Maliki jurist, hadith scholar, historian, and poet. With more than one thousand articles and books,4 Ibn Habib was one of the most prolific authors of al-Andalus from the conquest to the disappearance of the Andalusi people in the Iberian Peninsula. He devoted two books to genealogy. The first was: The book of Quraysh’s good people, their notices and their genealogies.
According al-Qadi ‘Iyad, this book contained 15 chapters.5 It seems, based on the title, that it was more or less a kind of book of literature. His second work in this field was: The book of genealogies:6 Based on its title, this book was entirely devoted to general genealogies, without a precise title. Furthermore, he devoted a book to general or universal history which he called Kitab al-Tarikh (The book of History). Unfortunately, his genealogical books have been lost for a long time. Among the
al-Fikr al-‘Ilmi al-‘Arabi, in : Al-Tawthiq wa al-Sayrura al-Akadimiyya. Tribute to the Pr. Ahmad al’Iraqi. Tansiq ‘Abd Allah Bennsar al-‘Alawi. Fes, Manshurat al-Markaz al-Akadimi li al-Thaqafa wa al-Dirasat al-Maghribiyya wa al-Sharq Awsatiyya wa al-Khalijiyya, pp. 438-450.
4 About Ibn Habib al-Sulami and his works, see the Prologue of J. Aguadé in‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Habib (1991) Kitab al-Ta’rikh (La Historia), ed by Jorge Aguadé. Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas, 1. Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Árabe, pp.15-75.
5 ‘Iyad al-Qadi (1383-1403H / 1965-1983) Tartib al-Madarik, wa Taqrib al-Masalik, li Ma’rifat A’lam Madhab Malik, ed. Muhammad Ibn Tawit at-Tanji, ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Sahrawi, Muhammad Ibn Sharifa, Sa’id A’rab. Rabat, Manshirat Wizarat al-Awqaf wa al-Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 4: 128.
6 Ibidem, 4: 128. 128/4 :
See as well: Bakr b. ‘Abd Allah Abu Zayd (1418H / 1998) Tabaqat al-Nassabin. Beirut, Mu’assasat al-Risala, pp. 82-83, N°136.
Andalusi Arabs authors, there were only a few who drew from these works. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, (d.328H / 939-940CE) does not quote them in his al-‘Iqd. Ibn Hazm, (d. 456H / 1064CE) in his Jamharat Ansab al-‘Arab, fortunately, quotes some of his references. But he does not quote explicitly Ibn Habib’s works in any case.
The only one who refers to Ibn Habib’s works is Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr.(d. 463H / 10701071CE) He does not refer to Ibn Habib’s works by name, but instead writes: “The book by ‘Abd al-Malik b. Habib al-Andalusi”.7 Presumably, he refers to The Book of Genealogies. It is also the only Andalusi book of genealogies in his list of references. Actually, he copies from this book a paragraph where Ibn Habib explains the major three subdivisions of the Arabs tribes, following the work of a certain genealogist by the name of Ibn Sallam alBasri.8 In parallel, he quotes two traditions concerning the genealogy of the Quda’a tribe.9
Ibn Khayr al Fasi al-Ishbili, (d. 575H / 1179CE), despite his long lists of the books that he had the permission to transmit from his masters,10 does not mention any of Ibn Habib’s works of genealogies. However, we will assume that the content of these lost works is included partially (or totally) in his Kitab al-Tarikh. And based on this book, we will undertake to detect the general lines of Ibn Habib’s genealogical thought, scattered throughout his book of history.
It should be remembered that the traditional Arab culture makes the connection between the beginning of the world and the origin of genealogies, because the sacred history of the creature explains and justifies necessarily the “sacred origins”. So, there is no genealogy without origin, and there is no genealogical origin disconnected from the beginning of the world and its myths. Ibn Habib thus makes the connection between the two, and explains the “origins” by some classical cosmogonist mythologies.
However, the biblical theory of the division of the human race into three great branches: that of Sam, Ham, and Japheth, is absent, or at least not clear. However, we can report some rare cases where Ibn Habib quotes some biblical genealogies and some Arab-biblical genealogies.
3. the biblicAl And Pseudo biblicAl geneAlogies:
7
Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (1418H / 1998) Al-Inbah ‘ala Qaba’il al-Ruwah (with Kitab al-Qasd wa al-Amam, by the same author), ed. Muhammad Zinhum Muhammad ‘Azab, ‘Aisha al-Tihami, Madiha al-Sharqawi. Col. Min Turath al-Ansab. 3. Cairo, Makt abat Madbouli, p. 41.
8 Ibidem, p. 57.
9 Idem, pp. 57-58.
10 Ibn Khayr (1893 [1963]) Fahrasat ma rawahu ‘an shuyukhih min al-Dawawin al-Musannafa fi durub al-‘Ilm wa Anwa’ al-Ma’arif, ed. Francisco Codera y Zaidín, Julian Ribera y Tarrago, Zaragoza, 1893. [Reproduced by al-Maktab al-Tijari, Maktabat al-Muthanna, Mu’assasat al-Khanji. Beirut, Bagdad, Cairo, 1963], pp. 487. 503. 508. 531.
As has already been mentioned, Ibn Habib does not adopt openly and exclusively the Hebraic genealogies, the trilateral divisions of the human race. Rather, he allows some referential biblical ancestors, which leads to believe that this Hebraic culture was his ulterior motive of his genealogical reflection. About that, we can, for example, detect what follows:
Pars b. Japheth b. Noe,11 Iram b. Sam b. Noe,12 Yunan b. Japheth b. Noe,13 Lut b. Aran b. Tarih b. Azar,14 Abraham b. Tarih, who is Azar b. Nahur b. Qharuj b. Arju b. Falij b. Jabir,15 (the Prophet Abraham’s genealogy), the Prophet Moses’s genealogy.16
He also did not fail to quote Namrud b. Kan’an’s genealogy,17 nor to quote the historical and biblical Alexander the Great’s genealogy, (often identified with Dhu-l-Qarnayn, the Qur’anic conqueror).18
It is certain that Ibn Habib was unable to explore the Bible directly, for lack of knowing Hebrew. Likewise, it does not seem likely that he had in his hands an Arabic version of the Bible. So, we can therefore deduce that he apparently quoted some anonymous extern (Mashriqi) sources.
Normally, the ancient genealogists insisted on dividing the Arabs into two great groups: the “extinct Arabs”, who are mentioned in the the Qur’an, and the “remaining Arabs”. Ibn Habib quotes ‘Ad’s sons,19 and the family ties between the supposedly extinct tribes: Thamud and ‘Ad.20 From time to time, he makes the connection between the Arab genealogies and the biblical Hebraic genealogies and quotes what follows:
Shu’ayb b. Nuwayb b. Akhzam b. Madyan b. Ibrahim,21 Madyan b. Ibrahim, (the Prophet Shu‘ayb’s people),22 and Salih b. ‘Abir b. ‘Abir b. Thamud b. ‘Abir b. Iram b. Sam b. Noe.23
At the same time, he seems disinterested by the Arab dual division between ‘Adnan and Qaht an, despite the fact that the Andalusi society was officially divided on the basis of this duality. He omits all reference to Ma‘add, ‘Adnan, or Isma‘il, archetypes of the Arabs, and
11 ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Habib (1991) Kitab al-Ta’rikh (La Historia), Op. Cit., p. 42.
12 Ibidem, p. 43.
13 Idem, p. 68.
14 Idem, p. 45.
15 Idem, p. 46.
16 Idem, p. 54.
17 Idem, p. 49.
18 Idem, p. 68.
19 Idem, p. 41.
20 Idem, p. 43.
21 Idem, p. 51.
22 Idem, p. 52.
23 Idem, p. 41.
seems disinterested by the links of kinship between Berbers and Arabs.
5. the isl AMic sAcred geneAlogy: the ProPhet’s geneAlogy, his descendAnts, And his coMPAnions:
In his Kitab al-Ta’rikh, Ibn Habib often refers openly to the classical historiansgenealogists, (some of them were his contemporaries, or one or two generations older) such Ibn Ishaq,24 (d. 151H / 768CE) Ibn Hisham (d.218H / 833CE), who was one of his masters in the Mashriq,25 and al-Waqidi (d.207H / 822CE),26 and copy long paragraphs from their works.
Curiously, Ibn Habib makes no allusion to the Prophet’s genealogy, despite the tradition that put the Prophet’s the genealogy at the center of interest, because of its sacred character. He also omits all reference to Ma‘add, ‘Adnan, or the Prophet Isma‘il, as archetype of the Arabs, or as ancestors of the Prophet. In return, he presentes the Prophet’s mother’s genealogy.27 This fact deserves to be reflected on.
At the same time, the Companions’ genealogies rarely appear in Ibn Habib’s Book of History. The only Companions to receive his attention are: Sa’id b. Zayd,28 and Abu Hurayra.29 This fact deserves too to be reflected on.
Why this general absence? Is it due to the omission of the author, or is it due to the “definitive redaction”30 of the book due to his disciples? The two hypotheses are valid. We can add another one. This is the original oral character of the book. Like any traditionalist, he would have pronounced some conferences, dictated some historical materials, and in “the definitive redaction”, some parts of the book were lost or modified. In any case, we shall base this study on the published text, which, we assume, reflected Ibn Habib’s genealogical thought.
This omission continued in al-Andalus in the next century. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, (d.328H / 939-940CE) who wrote during the political context of the Andalusi Umayyad emirate, allows in a short quotation the Prophet’s genealogy as part of “the caliphs, their histories and their battles”, and stopped his genealogy at Ma‘add b. ‘Adnan.31 He likewise quotes the Abu Bakr’s genealogy,32 ‘Omar,33 and the other subsequent caliphs. However, he always stops at ‘Abd Manaf as common ancestor. From this evidence, we might
24 Idem, p. 75. 77. 104. 25 Idem, p. 68. 76. 84.
26 Idem, p. 77. 78. 82. 83. 84. 85. 87. 89. 93. 96. 98. 99. 102. 103. 110. 116. 117. 127. 136. 149.
27 Idem, p. 77.
28 Idem, p. 122. 29 Idem, p. 123.
30 Jorge Aguadé: Prólogo, in ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Habib (1991) Kitab al-Ta’rikh (La Historia), Op. Cit. p. 83.
31 Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi (n.d.) Al-‘Iqd al-Farid. Beirut, Dar al-Fikr, 3: 2.
32 Ibidem, 3: 8. 33 Idem, 3: 20.
deduce that the Andalusi Umayyad context was not encouraging so much the history of the non-Umayyad’s clans of Quraysh, and that the authors preferred some silence about this topic.
6. the geneAlogies of the conquerors of the isl AMic west:
Ibn Habib was the first Andalusi to undertake writing the general history of the conquest of the Islamic West, including al-Andalus. However, he does not seem really influenced by the genealogical method, which consisted in presenting the complete (fictitious or real) linage of the great figures of “sacred history”, such as the prophets, kings or conquerors of the Arabian history. The conquerors of the Islamic West were not an exception. In general, Ibn Habib merely points out the name of the concerned person, and the name of his father, and just summarizes his tribal membership. ‘Uqba b. Nafi‘ al-Fihri34 is certainly a good example. We can also explain this phenomenon by issue we mentioned previously: that is, the problems of the “definitive redaction” and original oral character of the book.
Although Ibn Habib lived in al-Andalus a century after the great conquest of 92h/711, Iberian genealogies are practically absent in his History. He made no effort to understand the phenomenon of Iberian culture: the religion, mythology, history, genealogies, etc. He just summarizes by identifying the Iberian people as Goths.35 Based on the observation, we could conclude that “history”, for Ibn Habib, referred, first and foremost, to “sacred history”, and heroic Islamic history.
Actually, the history of Iberia did not form part of in any case. We can suppose that Iberian culture was not yet translated to Arabic, even partially, and must wait the caliph al-Mustansir’s period, (350-366j/961-976) in the middle of the IV/IX century, to see the translation of Orosius’s History 36 Apparently, the Arab historians and genealogists did not have enough materials concerning pre-Islamic Iberian history, and the Eastern movement of translation did not have a counterpart in al-Andalus.
Despite the islamization of the Berbers and their political and social role in al-Andalus, Ibn Habib does not really seem interested by their presence in al-Andalus and their culture. He sums up their origins and their belongings to the Jabbarin people, the ancient Palestinians37 to which the Qur’an alludes, and he made no effort to understand their culture, ethnographical divisions, etc., broadly similar to those of the Arabs.
34 ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Habib (1991) Kitab al-Ta’rikh (La Historia), Op. Cit., p. 122.
35 Ibidem, p. 138.
36 ‘Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Introduction to: Urusius (Orosius) (1982) Tarikh al-‘Alam: al-Tarjama al-‘Arabiyya al-Qadima, ed. ‘Abd al-Rahman Badawi. Beirut, al-Mu’assasat al-‘Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, p. 10.
37 ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Habib (1991) Kitab al-Ta’rikh (La Historia), Op. Cit., p. 49.
In spite of everything, it is clear that he tried to connect the origins of this people with the Biblical history, and to locate the Berber tribes in the Qur’an, at the risk of distorting their image: the Jabbarin people were the enemies of the Prophet Moses who inspired fear in the Jews:
“They said: O Musa (Moses)! In it (this holy land) are a people of great strength, and we shall never enter it till they leave it; when they leave, then we will enter”. (Surah 5, Al-Ma’idah. (The table)
This genealogical connection between Berbers and the Jabbarin people pushed Ibn Habib to go further and to pretend that God spoke to Moses first in Berber,38 an idea that, partially and indirectly lends a sacred character to this language and this people. Ibn Habib does not explain why God choose this language for communicating with his distinguished messenger, who was Hebraic and not Berber, in a language that was not his own, or even that was incomprehensible to him. Also, he does not explain why God changed his language and stopped speaking Berber.
It is possible to deduce implicitly that the Palestinians, the ancestors of the Berbers, were seen as infidels, because they represented the enemy camp of the faith (the Judaic religion).
It was not suitable for God to continue speaking the language of Moses’s enemies, and consequently the language of God’s enemies. This fact implies that God offered the ancestors of the Berbers a good opportunity to be his “chosen people”, but they lost it, and consequently, they were later forced to go out of the Sacred Land. In fact, we have to wait until Ibn Hazm (d.456H / 1064CE) to have a minimum of information about Berbers genealogies.39
For many historical reasons, the tribe of Quraysh was prestigious in the pre-Islamic period in the Arabian Peninsula. Besides, it is the only tribe to be mentioned with its own name in the Qur’an, and to be the subject of a whole sura (albeit a short one).40 In any case, it was the Prophet’s tribe, which gave it the greatest prestige, if not a certain sacredness, and the original tribe of the reigning Umayyad dynasty in al-Andalus, when Ibn Habib lived. The Andalusi Umayyad dynasty put the Andalusi Qurayshis in a very distinguished political place into the political hierarchy and the protocol, exactly just after the members
38 Ibidem, p. 58.
39 Ibn Hazm (1979) Jamharat Ansab al-‘Arab, ed. ‘Abd al-Salam Muhammad Harun. Col. Dhakhair al‘Arab. 2. Cairo, Dar al-Ma’arif, pp. 495-502.
40 The Noble Qur’an (1417H / 1997) English Translation and Commentary by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Madinah, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an, Surat Quraysh, verse: 1-4.
of the dynasty, despite of the historical changes that this tribe experienced through the centuries.
Of course, it is possible to affirm that the name of Quraysh did not mean in the Umayyad protocol and in the fact some Quraysh clans (the ‘Alawis and the Abbasids clans and may be others) which caused the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in the Mashriq.
In addition, and for this reason, these clans and lineages were absent in al-Andalus in the first centuries of its history. An exception should be noted. The Idrissid and Sulaymanid princes from the IV/X century, when the Umayyad caliphate started to intervene openly in Maghrebi affairs, and invited some of them to settle in al-Andalus for political reasons.
Certainly, the prominent place the Quraysh enjoyed in al-Andalus pushed to think about Quraysh: What is this tribe, and why was its political rank highly considered. It is in this context of the religious, symbolical and political domination of Quraysh, (including the clan of the Umayyad dynasty) that Ibn Habib wrote, and in which the first book of genealogies in al-Andalus, appeared. But, we can suppose that it was at the origin of the composition of other books of genealogies or chapters later on.
It is true that al-Andalus was really far away from the Arabian Peninsula, and actually, the tribe of Quraysh in the two first Islamic centuries in Mecca or in Syria was sufficiently different from what the Andalusi Umayyad dynasty called “Quraysh” in al-Andalus in the second and third hegirian centuries.
However, since the Umayyad dynasty of al-Andalus considered itself the continuation of the Umayyad caliphate of Damascus, it was obliged to reproduce, totally or partially, or even symbolically, the experience of this caliphate in Syria, searching its allies between the Arabs of al-Andalus, and more specially, between its tribe of origin, that is to say “Quraysh”, by giving them a prominent place in the hierarchy. Would it be the Quraysh of Syria or the Quraysh of Hejaz? Symbolically, the distinction was not an issue. They were all Quraysh, the “natural” allies of the Umayyad dynasty.
This feeling of alliance, solidarity, and kinship or esprit de corps, (‘asabiyya) if we take Ibn Khaldun’s term and concept,41 was so strong in al-Andalus that the Umayyad dynasty constituted on an undetermined date, a special office consecrated to their affairs, including absolutely the Umayyad clan. A brief notice of this institution appears one century later, in 349H / 960-961CE, in Ibn al-Faradi’s Tarikh, a reference to Abu Bakr Ibn al-Azraq alUmawi, a certain Umayyad Eastern immigrant:
“He arrived to al-Andalus on 49. (349H / 960-961CE) So, al-Mustansir bi-llah ordered to accommodate him, offered him a good salary, and subscribed him in the Quraysh’s Office”.42
41 See for example, Ibn Khaldun (1979) Al-Muqaddima, ed. ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Wahid Wafi. Cairo, Dar Nahdat Misr, 2: 991.
42 Abu-l-Walid Ibn al-Faradi (1429H / 2008) Tarikh ‘Ulama’ al-Andalus, ed. Bash-shar ‘Aw-wad Ma‘ruf. Silsilat al-Tarajim al-Andalusiyya. 1. Tunis, Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1: 151.
Sadly, we do not have sufficient data to describe this office. Many questions could be be asked: What exactly was this institution? Was it the equivalent of the institution known as the Niqabat al-Ashraf in the Mashriq? Way did the Andalusi jurists pass over it in silence? Additionaly, we could ask: When did it appear exactly? Who founded it and when? When did it disappear? Was it at the origin of all the genealogical production of al-Andalus? Did the Andalusis descending from the Prophet, the Ashraf, found an Andalusi Niqabat al-Ashraf in parallel to the one that existed in the Mashriq? If so, when and where? Did later genealogists in al-Andalus, such as Ibn Hazm, (d. 456H / 1064CE), consult their archives directly or indirectly?
We do not have answers to these important questions. But in any case, we feel profoundly that this office was not only a tribal or genealogical office, but a political office too, one that served the interests of the Umayyad state in al-Andalus and served as an official link with the Arabian Peninsula. It was apparently in charge of registering the new births of all Qurayshis, the new Qurayshis who came from the Arabian Peninsula and other countries, and taking care of them, similarly to the Abbassid’s Niqabat al-Ashraf
In short, we can consider these early Andalusi writings on genealogies (and the others later on) a mental and symbolical expression of a deep Andalusi attachment to the Arabian Peninsula, and more exactly to the Holy Lands, or the two sanctuaries, and we can see in it an adoption and reproduction of the glorious sacred history, that of Quraysh, and in particular the clan of the Banu Umayya.
By seeking to create genealogical links between Arabian Peninsula tribes and Arab Andalusi Peninsula tribes, Andalusi thought sought to situate al-Andalus in the Islamic World, the Dar al-Islam, and to honor or sanctify al-Andalus, its Arab people and its dynasty.
At the same time, by seeking to create genealogical links between the archetypes of the Arabs and the sacred Hebraic history, it sought to find a place for the Arabs in sacred and universal history. And finally, these first writings sought to integrate the Berbers into the same “universal history”, creating for them a glorious past and links with Arabs and Hebraic people.
This attempt to join Arabs and Berbers in the same “universal history” would become clearer and more detailed in later centuries, and exactly in the fifth/eleventh century, when Ibn Hazm devoted an entire chapter to the Berbers in his Jamharat Ansab al-‘Arab
This centrality of the Arabs, in general, and the Quraysh in particular, would have created a certain quiet opposition or reaction to its supremacy. In the fourth/tenth century, the great qadi of Cordoba, al Mundhir b. Sa’id al-Balluti, (d. 355H / 966CE) authorized all people without a clear genealogy to adopt an Arab genealogy, and especially an Ansari nisba, which would place them in a considerable rank in Andalusi society.43 Certainly,
43 Ibn Dihya (2020) Wahaj al-Jamr, fi Tahrim al-Khamr. Ed. Anas Wakkak. Marrakech, Mu’assasat Afaq, pp. 102-103. About this curious decision: Maribel Fierro (2004) La Nisba al-Ansari en al-Andalus y el Cadí Mundhir B. Sa’id. Al-Qantara, XXV, 1: 233-237; and Maribel Fierro (2006) The Ansaris, Nasir al-Din and
a lot of Berbers and Muladíes took advantage of this legal decision. We can see in the establishment or the reestablishment of this office in the period of an-Nasir’s caliphate an implicit reaction to this legal decision, to protect the moral capital of the hard core of the Umayyad dynasty, i.e. the genealogy of the Quraysh’s tribe in al-Andalus.
Bakr b. ‘Abd Allah Abu Zayd (1418H / 1998) Tabaqat al-Nassabin. Beirut, Mu’assasat al-Risala.
Maribel Fierro (2004) La Nisba al-Ansari en al-Andalus y el Cadí Mundhir B. Sa’id. AlQantara, XXV, 1: 233-237.
Maribel Fierro (2006) The Ansaris, Nasir al-Din and the Nasrids in al-Andalus, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 31: 232-247.
Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (1418H / 1998) Al-Inbah ‘ala Qaba’il al-Ruwah (with Kitab al-Qasd wa al-Amam, by the same author), ed. Muhammad Zinhum Muhammad ‘Azab, ‘Aisha alTihami, Madiha al-Sharqawi. Col. Min Turath al-Ansab. 3. Cairo, Makt abat Madbouli.
Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi (n.d.) Al-‘Iqd al-Farid. Beirut, Dar al-Fikr.
Ibn Dihya (2020) Wahaj al-Jamr, fi Tahrim al-Khamr. Ed. Anas Wakkak. Marrakech, Mu’assasat Afaq.
Ja‘far Ibn al-Hajj al-Sulami (1439H / 2018) ‘Ilm al-Ansab fi al-Fikr al-‘Ilmi al-‘Arabi, in : Al-Tawthiq wa al-Sayrura al-Akadimiyya. Tribute to the Pr. Ahmad al’Iraqi. Tansiq ‘Abd Allah Bennsar al-‘Alawi. Fes, Manshurat al-Markaz al-Akadimi li al-Thaqafa wa al-Dirasat al-Maghribiyya wa al-Sharq Awsatiyya wa al-Khalijiyya, pp. 438-450.
Abu-l-Walid Ibn al-Faradi (1429H / 2008) Tarikh ‘Ulama’ al-Andalus, ed. Bash-shar ‘Awwad Ma‘ruf. Silsilat al-Tarajim al-Andalusiyya. 1. Tunis, Dar al-Gharb al-Islami. ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Habib (1991) Kitab al-Ta’rikh (La Historia), ed by Jorge Aguadé. Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas, 1. Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Árabe.
Ibn Hazm (1979) Jamharat Ansab al-‘Arab, ed. ‘Abd al-Salam Muhammad Harun. Col. Dhakhair al-‘Arab. 2. Cairo, Dar al-Ma’arif.
Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi al-Garnati (1354H / 1935) Al-Qawanin al-Fiqhiyya. Ed. Muhammad Bardalla Fes, al-Maktaba al-Adabiyya.
Ibn Khaldun (1979) Al-Muqaddima, ed. ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Wahid Wafi. Cairo, Dar Nahdat Misr. Ibn Khayr (1893 [1963]) Fahrasat ma rawahu ‘an shuyukhih min al-Dawawin al-Musannafa fi durub al-‘Ilm wa Anwa’ al-Ma’arif, ed. Francisco Codera y Zaidín, Julian Ribera y Tarrago, Zaragoza, 1893. [Reproduced by al-Maktab al-Tijari, Maktabat al-Muthanna, Mu’assasat al-Khanji. Beirut, Bagdad, Cairo, 1963].
‘Iyad al-Qadi (1383-1403H / 1965-1983) Tartib al-Madarik, wa Taqrib al-Masalik, li Ma’rifat A’lam Madhab Malik, ed. Muhammad Ibn Tawit at-Tanji, ‘Abd al-Qadir althe Nasrids in al-Andalus, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 31, pp. 232-247.
Sahrawi, Muhammad Ibn Sharifa, Sa’id A’rab. Rabat, Manshirat Wizarat al-Awqaf wa alShu’un al-Islamiyya.
Haji Khalifa (Katib Celebi) (1941) Kashf al-Zunun, ‘An Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun Istanbul, Matba’at al-Ma’arif.
The Noble Qur’an (1417H / 1997) English Translation and Commentary by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Madinah, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an.
Urusius (Orosius) (1982) Tarikh al-‘Alam: al-Tarjama al-‘Arabiyya al-Qadima, ed. ‘Abd alRahman Badawi. Beirut, al-Mu’assasat al-‘Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr.
1
Sara Solá Portillo, Universidad de Málaga (solaportillo@uma.es). Dana Zaben, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (dana.zaben@uclm.es)
Tracing the historical panorama of the assimilation and transmission of scientific and technical knowledge from one culture to another, from one era to another, and from one language to another is fascinating. In this process, a multitude of factors play an important role, such as language, religion and politics.
Arabic was indeed the scientific language of the Middle Ages and, when studying the history of science and philosophy, it became the third classical language along with Greek and Latin. In spite of its importance, we find no studies centered only in Arabic as a language and its role in the development of science during the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance. We can cite several studies that gravitate around this idea,2 but they
1 This article is part of the research fields of the following projects: “La Escuela de Traductores de Toledo y las traducciones de obras médicas: textos, transmisión manuscrita y recepción” (SBPLY/19/180501/000087) and “Galenus Latinus: Recuperación del Patrimonio de la Medicina Europea II” (FFI2016-77240-P) of the R&D group Interpretes Medicinae, which leads the Network of Excellence “Opera Medica: Recuperación del Patrimonio Textual Grecolatino de la Medicina Europea” (RED2018-102781-T). The participation of Dana Zaben in this article has been possible thanks to the predoctoral contract granted by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports of the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha and co-financed with the European Social Fund (Extract BDNS, Identif.: 451560. [2019/4156]). The participation of Sara Solá Portillo (pre-doctoral researcher in training at the University of Málaga, in co-direction with the University of Castilla-La Mancha) in this work has also been possible thanks to the help granted by the University of Málaga by virtue of its “I Plan Propio de Investigación, Transferencia y Divulgación Científica”.
2 Such as the works by Dimitri Gutas (1998). Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th c.). New York: Routledge; and Myriam Salama-Carr (1990). La traduction à l’époque abbasside. Paris: Didier Érudition.
are centered in describing the Graeco-Arabic and Latin translation movements and the relationship that linked Arabic to Greek and Latin, rather than in the journey of Arabic itself or in comparing different versions of the texts that were translated to see how language evolved. In other words, the focus has been traditionally put on Antiquity and how its legacy travelled through time and space, but never in the history of Arabic or in the development of medicine through language.
Therefore, we lack studies that combine the linguistic knowledge we have about Arabic with the historical context that accompanied its transformation and development. At this point, when we already know a lot about Antiquity, it is only natural to begin to study the evolution of Arabic from being a nomadic dialect in the Arabian Peninsula to the language of science and medicine in the Iberian Peninsula and Medieval Europe. To do this, apart from comparing Arabic texts with its Greek and Latin versions, we must also take into consideration the historical context of pre-Islamic Arabia, the rise of Islam, the survival of the Hellenistic culture on the borders of the Arabian Peninsula, the crucial role of medieval Nestorian Christianity in the East in the 9th century and the translation movements in Baghdad and Toledo.
Hence, this article attempts to shed a new light on this line of research, focussing on Arabic itself and tracing its evolution from its origins to the moment it served as a channel for Greek medicine to enter Europe. To analyze the role that Arabic played in transmitting the Greek legacy in the West, we can’t forget to study the translations made into Arabic in the House of Wisdom by Hunayn ibn Ishaq from the Greek, on the one hand, and the survival of this Arabic medical lexicon in the Latin of Gerard of Cremona, on the other. This is why we included a brief presentation of both in this article, that aims to meet the need to elucidate the role of the translation work in this transmission and to serve as a starting point to solve the lack of comparative studies.
the evolution of ArAbic l AnguAge in the ArAbiAn Peninsul A Arabic is a Semitic language. It was first documented in the middle of the third millennium BC. It reached a diverse geographic space of the Arabian Peninsula, which extended to areas near Mesopotamia, the Syrian-Lebanese area, the southern coasts, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.3 It is often defined as the language spoken by a number of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes who used to live in the Arabian Peninsula from the first millennium BC. They were nomads, quite similar to the current Bedouins, and were living in constant small wars between themselves, for revenge, honor or food disputes. Their religion was mainly based on polytheism.4 Pre-classic or pre-Islamic Arabic refers to the language spoken by tribes before the rise of Islam. Different dialects were used that have been classified as Arabic in a general way.
3 Ignacio Ferrando (2001). Introducción a la historia de la lengua árabe. Nuevas perspectivas. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, esp. 23.
4 Not to forget the existence of Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism at the same time in the peninsula.
Despite the differences between those tribes, they shared one important thing: a common poetic Arabic language that helped to establish the base of the Arabic language and identity. Their communication was based on oral tradition and luxurious poetry. Poetry was an important element of their culture and honor; they were holding many competitions of oral poetry with other tribes. It is also interesting to mention that pre-Islamic poetry shows that Bedouins possessed some knowledge of animals, plants and minerals from its peninsula, since they were pastoralists.
In the 7th century the essential figure of Muhammad emerged, the founder of the new religion of that time, who was born in Mecca within the Quraysh tribe. At the age of forty, Muhammad began to receive the word of God, which entrusted him to transmit the Revelation to men. From 613 he began to preach and gather his first followers among his relatives. Later on, the growth of this Islamic empire led to the evolution of Arabic language, by giving it authority and supremacy. It functioned as a powerful political, doctrinal and cultural tool that represented an important pillar of the identity of the new Islamic civilization.5 As a result of the wide expansion of Islam, Arabs came into contact with the near civilizations, so it was necessary to establish a linguistic code that would function as a normative language. The origin of the unified and normative language of the Islamic empire can be traced back to three main sources: the oral tradition, the preIslamic poetry and the Quranic texts. It was in the 8th century when the most important grammarian of the Arabic language, Sibawayh, wrote the earliest book on Arabic linguistics and grammar: The Kitab.6
Moreover, two administrative decisions made Arabic become one of the most important languages from the 8th onwards. Circa 696, in the Umayyad era, the caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705) took the first of them: he standardised his imperial administration with Arabic, which replaced Greek in the West and Persian in the East. This had clear consequences at all levels both in the Umayyad administration and in the empire’s culture.7 On the other hand, the Abbasids revolted and took power in 750. After that, they moved the imperial capital from Damascus to Baghdad in 762. The people of Damascus were native speakers of Greek, which was also the administrative language there. Because of that, there was no need to translate Ancient Greek texts into any other language in Damascus. On the contrary, even though Baghdad population was strongly hellenized, it was composed by Aramaic, Farsi and Arabic speakers.8
5 Ignacio Ferrando (2001). Introducción a la historia de la lengua árabe… Op. Cit., esp. 17.
6 Kees Versteegh (1997). The Arabic Linguistic Tradition, Part of the Landmarks in Linguistic Thought series, vol. 3. London: Routledge, esp. 4.
7 Glen Cooper (2019). Hunayn ibn Ishaq and the Creation of an Arabic Galen, in Petros Vallianatos and Barbara Zipser (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen. Leiden: Brill, pp. 179-195, esp. 180.
8 Dimitri Gutas (1998). Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement… Op. Cit., esp. 19.
Along with the reasons stated before, the contact between Arabs and their Persian and Byzantine neighbors facilitated their access to Greek science thanks to commerce, the expansion of Islam and, most importantly, the Syriac Nestorian Christian writers, scientists, monks and translators that worked during 5th and 6th in the Persian cities of Edessa, Nisibis and Gundeshapur.9 Their magnificent work of translation of scientific works continued under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate. At the beginning, they dedicated themselves to translate mathematical, philosophical, medical and astronomical works into Syriac and sometimes into Arabic. Undoubtedly, the Arabic language of that time lacked the technical terms which were used by Greek scientists. For this reason, we can find many transliterations and transcriptions of the Greek medical and technical terms in the early Graeco-Arabic translations.
The 9th century was the period of the greatest translation activity. The translators, mainly Nestorians, were fluent in Greek, Syriac and Arabic, and often in Persian as well. During the reign of al-Mamun, the translation movement reached its peak and the monarch created the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. However, even though many researchers link the House of Wisdom with translation from Greek into Arabic, it now seems more evident that the House of Wisdom was more than a library where translations from Persian were stored and some activities related to astronomy and maths were performed.10 Later on, during the reign of al-Mutawakkil, the Nestorian physician and translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq was one of the —if not the most— prolific translator of the so-called GraecoArabic translation movement. He translated the complete works of Galen, specifically, 129: 39 into Arabic and 90 into Syriac.11 In addition, he translated works by Hippocrates, Plotomeo, Paulo de Egina, Dioscorides, and Euclides. In the House of Wisdom, the work was distributed depending on the specialization of each translator, who also worked as scientists and physicians. Therefore, Hunayn translated mainly medical works. He was not only the most important translator of his time, but he also had around 90 disciples under his supervision, like Hubaysh ibn al-Hasan, Ishaq ibn Hunayn, Thabit Ibn Qurra and Qusta Ibn Luqa.12
9 For a more exhaustive study of the role of the Syriac language in the trasmission of ancient knowledge, it is useful to read the work of Siam Bhayro (2017). «Galen in Syriac: Rethinking Old Assumptions», Aramaic Studies, 15, pp. 132-154.
10 Dimitri Gutas (1998). Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement… Op. Cit., esp. 58.
11 Noelia Ramón García (2002). Los orígenes de la traducción científica: la casa de la sabiduría, in Laura Cruz García, Víctor González Ruiz and Elena Pérez Ramírez, Actas de las IIª Jornadas de Jóvenes Traductores. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, pp. 169-178, esp. 177.
12 About the life and work of these translators, see De Lacy O’Leary (1949). How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, esp. 155-275.
It is likely that Hunayn, with the other translators of the House of Wisdom in the 9th century, were the creators of the scientific and technical Arabic. We can’t forget that Arabic was originally an oral language of the nomadic tribes of Arabia. Therefore, there is no doubt that scientific and medical terms were lacking at that time in this language. If that is true, their work was crucial, as they found an equivalence of many Greek terms in Arabic and, in many cases, created neologisms in this area. Hence, the existence of scientific Arabic, which circulated both in the East and in the West, would not have been possible without Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his disciples. In this way, they were responsible for developing a technical vocabulary in Arabic, along with a style for scientific speech.
Apart from what has been described, the translations made in Baghdad changed not only Arabic from a linguistic point of view, but also both Islamic and Christian civilizations at the time. The language itself, as we said, was enriched with Greek terms in order to express realities that had never been a thing for Arab people. The translation movement also encouraged scholars to reflect on Arabic grammar, as they needed to teach this language to foreign people that now needed or were interested in learning it without having a religious purpose. Lastly, this new focus on language brought heated discussions about the origin of human language and facilitated the commentary of old works which were to be incorporated in the Islamic —and later also Christian— civilization.13
After being translated into Arabic in Baghdad, Greek medical works arrived to the Iberian Peninsula —al-Andalus at the time—. This meant two things: (1) That Ancient Greek medicine arrived in Europe first in al-Andalus and through Arabic, directly from Baghdad. This implied that Arabic, after becoming the scientific language of the East, took an even more critical role in the development and transmission of both medical language and medical knowledge in the West. (2) That, in this situation, we can consider Arabic to be the first medical language of Europe in the Middle Ages. Before it, there was no medical production in Europe apart from the Ancient Greek works. This is true not only because all the knowledge from Ancient Greece was transferred in Arabic rather than in Greek, but also because some translations into Arabic were done in al-Andalus, following the trail of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. One of the first ancient medical works to be translated into Arabic in al-Andalus was De materia medica by Dioscorides around the middle of the 10th century.14
Andalusian medicine combined Greek doctrines, which made the most part of it, with hints of other medicines such as Indian, Persian and Chinese. Al-Andalus was also innovative in pharmacology, where Arabs got to surpass Greeks.15 Some physicians from al-
13 Myriam Salama-Carr (1990). La traduction à l’époque abbasside, Op. Cit., esp. 81-85.
14 Silvia Nora Arroñada (2008). «Algunas reflexiones sobre la medicina andalusí», Iacobus, 23-24, pp. 121140, esp. 124.
15 Peter Pormann (2011). «The Formation of the Arabic Pharmacology: between Tradition and Innovation»,
Andalus with great works of pharmacology are Ibn Wafid (11th c.), Ibn al-Kattani (11th c.), Ibn Zuhr (12th c.) and Ibn al-Baytar (13th c.). All of them got to read Greek medical works thanks to the translations that had been made in Baghdad, which circulated among them at the time. They encountered a fully structured doctrine in their own language, which also happened to be the scientific language of the world at the time. Thanks to translators like Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Hubaysh ibn al-Hasan and Thabit ibn Qurra, many of whom were also brilliant physicians and got to publish original works in Arabic, intellectuals of al-Andalus had the problem of terminology solved and were able to actually express every medical condition and bodily function in a fairly systematic way from the very first moment they came across the greatest medical works of Ancient Greece, such as those by Hippocrates, Dioscorides and Galen. In some disciplines they used more Greek terms, as in pharmacology, but in others they got to create a terminology system only composed by Arabic roots, as in anatomy.16
From the 9th century onwards, Arab physicians started to write their own medical works after having assimilated Greek, Persian and Indian medicines. Overall, they followed the Galenic doctrine in every discipline, especially anatomy and surgery, where they made few advances compared to the Greek physician. Above all, they wrote recipes, regulations for hospitals and books on simple drugs.17
At the same time, the contact between Arabic and Latin in the Iberian Peninsula gave a new dimension to Arabic, as it became the original language for translators into Latin in the Iberian Peninsula. This new translation movement can be considered as the last step in the transmission of knowledge from Ancient Greece to Medieval Europe. The first translations into Latin were done in the 10th century in cities like Vic and Santa María de Ripoll, in current Catalonia. However, it wasn’t until the 12th century when the translation activity into Latin bloomed in Toledo. From there, texts about all disciplines, from philosophy and astronomy to medicine and pharmacology, travelled to other cities in Europe and made their way to the curricula of the first European universities. In the very early stage of this translation movement medical texts were translated but then, from the 12th century onwards, other subjects were also taken into account.18
Toledo was the center for the translation into Latin of Arabic scientific and philosophical texts due to several reasons: firstly, the linguistic mix of its population, as many of them were Mozarabs and spoke Arabic and a Romance dialect, Arabic being the language of religion
Annals of Science, 68 (4), pp. 493-515, esp. 493.
16 Camilo Álvarez de Morales (ed.) (1998). El cuerpo humano en la medicina árabe medieval. Consideraciones generales sobre la anatomía, in C. Álvarez de Morales (ed.), Ciencias de la naturaleza en al-Ándalus Textos y estudios v. Granada: Escuela de Estudios Árabes del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, pp. 121-136, esp. 131.
17 Ibidem: 127-132.
18 Daniel König (2019). Latin-Arabic Entanglement: A Short History, in Daniel König (ed.), Latin and Arabic: Entangled Histories. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, pp. 31-121, esp. 88.
and culture; secondly, its importance as a scientific center even before being conquered by Christians, who found many books stored in the city when they arrived; and thirdly, the existence of a group of people related to the cathedral of Toledo that didn’t speak Arabic but were interested in reading all the literature available translated into Latin.19 However, in general, we can say that the idea was to export translations to other European cities where universities were placed and the majority of the population could read Latin.20
At this point, we would like to note that what has been traditionally called the Toledo School of Translators was not actually a school, as no translation techniques were taught there nor do we have evidence of any place or building that served as the center of the translation activities that were performed in Toledo. However, the use of the term school is somehow justified because of the relationships that linked together the translators of that time.21
The translation process at Toledo included Romance as an intermediate language: first, a Jewish person translated the text from Arabic into Romance orally and word by word; at the same time, another translator translated whatever he heard from Romance into Latin. Then, the text was proofread and corrected.22
In this context, Latin was enriched by a huge number of Arabic terms to describe Greek concepts. At first, these terms were part of specialised texts but, as the Renaissance arrived, all of these lexical and syntactical arabisms were erased. However, some of them stayed in the colloquial language and are alive in Spanish even today, such as alcohol, azufre, bórax, jaqueca, jarabe, nuca, zaratán, etc.23
ArAbic footPrint in l Atin l AnguAge And euroPeAn Medicine: the cAse of hunAyn ibn ishAq, gerArd of creMonA And on SiMPLE DrUGS
As we said in the previous section of this article, the lively translation activity from Arabic into Latin had some consequences: first, that Greek medicine arrived to Europe; second, that Arabic doctrine got known among European physicians; third, that Latin got enriched with many loanwords from Arabic or other languages through Arabic; and fourth, that all of this content was the base of textbooks and curricula in the first European universities teaching medicine. One of the clearest examples of this process is the pharmacology treaty
19 Charles Burnett (2001). «The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century», Science in Context, 14 (1/2), pp. 249-288, esp. 249-250.
20 Ibidem: 253 and 269.
21 On this idea, see Ahmed Kamal Zaghloul and Adel Mohamed Nasr (2020). «El movimiento de traducción en la Casa de la Sabiduría de Bagdad y la Escuela de Traductores de Toledo», Entreculturas, 10, pp. 57-68, esp. 64.
22 Bertha María Gutiérrez Rodilla (1998). La ciencia empieza en la palabra. Análisis e historia del lenguaje científico. Barcelona: Península, esp. 54-55.
23 Meaning alcohol, sulfur, borax, headache, syrup, nape and cancer respectively. Ibidem, esp. 63-64.
De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus or On simple drugs by Galen. Let’s review the history of its transmission.
On simple drugs is a pharmacology treaty and is composed of 11 books. The first five are theoretical and the last six are practical. Galen wrote it in the 2nd century in Greek, but it wasn’t until the 6th century when it was translated for the first time into Syriac by Sergius of Reshaina. The treaty was to be translated twice more into Syriac: one by Yusuf al-Khuri al-Qass and other by Job of Edessa.24 Then, moving onto the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, On simple drugs was first translated into Arabic by al-Bitriq25 and then Hunayn ibn Ishaq.26 This latter translation was the one that served as a model to Gerard of Cremona, the main translator of the treaty into Latin.
In general terms, researchers affirm27 that the Gerardian translations are faithful in the style of translation of the Arabic versions. It seems that Cremona maintains features similar to those of Hunayn, such as using many arabisms, expanding the text and adding annotations, explanations, or context.28
Some Andalusian physicians also based their works in the content of this treaty. For example, Ibn Wafid’s (11th c.), Abu al-Salt’s (11th and 12th c.) and Ibn al-Baytar’s (13th c.) treaties on simple drugs contain many references to the original book by Galen. One
24 John Lamoreaux (2016). Hunayn ibn Ishaq on His Galen Translations. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, esp. 66-68.
25 On al-Bitriq’s life and work, see Douglas Dunlop (1959). «The Translations of al-Bitriq and Yahya (Yuhanna) b. al-Bitriq», Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 91 (3-4), pp. 140-150.
26 Manfred Ullmann [(2002). Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag] discovered that al-Bitriq’s version is available today in a manuscript kept in Istanbul and compared it to Hunayn’s translation. Also, Hunayn’s version of book vi is currently being edited, translated into Spanish and compared to that of al-Bitriq’s by Sara Solá Portillo as part of her doctoral thesis, «Kitab al-adwiya al-mufrada: la versión árabe del De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus de Galeno: edición crítica, traducción y estudio del libro vi».
27 Danielle Jacquart (1989). Remarques préliminaires à une étude comparée des traductions médicales de Gérard de Crémona, in Geneviéve Contamine (ed.), Traduction et traducteurs au Moyen Âge. Actes du colloque international du CNRS organisé à Paris, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, les 26-28 mai 1986. Paris: Éd. du CNRS, pp. 109-118; and Danielle Jacquart (1992). Les traductions médicales de Gérard de Crémone, in Pierluigi Pizzamiglio (ed.), Gerardo da Cremona. Annali della Biblioteca statale e libreria civica di Cremona XLI (1990). Cremona: Libreria del Convegno editrice, pp. 557-70; Iolanda Ventura (2019). Galenic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Galen’s On the Capacities of Simple Drugs and its Reception between the Sixth and Fourteenth Century, in Petros Bouras-Vallianatos y Barbara Zipser (eds.). Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 393–433; and Marina Díaz Marcos (2021). De simplicibus medicinis liber VI. Edición crítica y estudio de la traducción latina de Gerardo de Cremona, tesis doctoral, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, http://hdl.handle.net/10578/28679 [19/11/2021].
28 On Hunayn’s translation technique, see, for example, Glen Cooper (2016). «Hunayn ibn Ishaq’s Galen Translations and Greco-Arabic Philology: Some Observations from the Crises (De crisibus) and the Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis)», Oriens, 44, pp. 1-43; and Uwe Vagelpohl (2018). The user-friendly Galen: Hunayn ibn Ishaq and the adaptation of Greek medicine for a new audience, in Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Sophia Xenophontos (eds.), Greek Medical Literature and its Readers: From Hippocrates to Islam and Byzantium. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 133-130.
of the manuscripts containing book vi even states the relation of famous physicians and pharmacologists who owned a copy of it around the 12th and 13th centuries.29
As for the influence of Arabic in the Latin version of the treaty, it can be seen mostly in plant names. In the following table there are some examples of plants that were transliterated directly from Arabic by Gerard of Cremona:30
Table 1. Plant names
Arabic (Hunayn ibn Ishaq) Latin (Gerard of Cremona)
Scientific name31
جكيبك kebikeg Racunculus L. sp.
ضيبأ مرك carm abiat Bryonia alba L. رعرع haharrar Juniperus oxycedrus L. برص sybar Aloe vera L. لماعلا يح heialaalem Sempervivum L. sp. دوسلأا مركلا alkarm alsued
Dioscorea communis (L.) Caddick & Wilkin
Tanacetum parthenium (L.) Sch. Bip. جولا oegi Acorus calamus L. رمنلا قناخ canich alnemer Aconitum anthora L.
ناوحقلأا alchohen
29 Matteo Martelli and Lucia Raggetti represent this relation in a schematic way: (2016). «Stone by Stone: Building the Graeco-Arabic Edition of Galen’s On Simple Drugs, Book IX», Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin, 2, pp. 48-58.
30 To know more about the transliteration system used by Gerard while translating this treaty, see Marina Díaz Marcos (2021). De simplicibus medicinis liber VI… Op. Cit. , esp. 73.
31 The scientific names showed here respond to the Arabic terms as used in On Simple Drugs book vi by Hunayn ibn Ishaq and always taking into account the original Greek plant names they go back to. The works by Antonio López Eire (dir.) (2006). Dioscórides de Salamanca, https://dioscorides.usal.es/ [18/11/2021]; and Euro+Med PlantBase - the information resource for Euro-Mediterranean plant diversity, http://ww2. bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/ [15/11/2021] were of great help in the task of assigning a scientific name to each Arabic term.
بئذلا لتاق catil adib
رأفلا ناذآ edhen alfar
Aconitum napellus L.
Thelygonum cynocrambe L.
فساجنلبلا albeneguesit Artemisia vulgaris L.
يبرلا مركلا karm alberri
Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris (C.C. Gmel.) Hegi
درواذب bedeoard Picnomon acarna (L.) Cass.
Through this article we have reached some interesting conclusions concerning Arabic and its role in the transmission of knowledge and more specifically medicine all the way from Ancient Greece up until the Renaissance. Moreover, we have seen the phases of the evolution of Arabic language: from being a nomadic dialect in the Arabian Peninsula to the language of science and medicine in the Iberian Peninsula. This strong relationship that ties together both territories made it possible for humanity to preserve the Greek legacy not only in Medicine, but also in other disciplines.
As a consequence of what has been stated in the article, we can affirm that the translations of Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his disciples during the Graeco-Arabic translation movement in the 9th century in the House of Wisdom reflected the sociological and sociolinguistic circumstances of that time. The Arabic language reached its peak as a scientific language, since they developed the Arabic medical lexicon. In the same way, as translators, they have the merit of having developed Arabic and having turned it into a scientific and technical language, at the same level as the Greek and Syriac of that time.
As a result of that Graeco-Arabic translation movement, the Greek legacy of science, philosophy and medicine were accessible to the East and the West. This Arabized legacy began to be translated into Latin in the West between the 11th-12th centuries, mainly, through the Corpus Toletanum in Toledo. The translations of Gerard of Cremona, the Head of the so-called Toledo of Translators, are faithful to the translation style of the Arabic versions. It seems that Gerard of Cremona maintained features similar to those of Hunayn. Because of this, many aspects of Arabic survived in the Latin versions of medicine and pharmacology; such as arabisms.
We hope that this article has served as a highlight of the importance of Arabian-Iberian exchanges in the Middle Ages as part of human history. We also encourage other researchers to focus on Arabic itself and take their analyses back to the pre-Islamic era. As for us, we will continue our comparative study between Greek texts and medieval Arabic and Latin translations in order to better understand the role of translation in the development of
science as well as the evolution of Arabic from different points of view.
Ahmed Kamal Zaghloul and Adel Mohamed Nasr (2020). «El movimiento de traducción en la Casa de la Sabiduría de Bagdad y la Escuela de Traductores de Toledo», Entreculturas, 10, pp. 57-68.
Antonio López Eire (dir.) (2006). Dioscórides de Salamanca, https://dioscorides.usal.es/ [18/11/2021].
Bertha María Gutiérrez Rodilla (1998). La ciencia empieza en la palabra. Análisis e historia del lenguaje científico. Barcelona: Península. Camilo Álvarez de Morales (ed.) (1998). El cuerpo humano en la medicina árabe medieval. Consideraciones generales sobre la anatomía, in C. Álvarez de Morales (ed.), Ciencias de la naturaleza en al-Ándalus. Textos y estudios v. Granada: Escuela de Estudios Árabes del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, pp. 121-136.
Charles Burnett (2001). «The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century», Science in Context, 14 (1/2), pp. 249-288.
Daniel König (2019). Latin-Arabic Entanglement: A Short History, in Daniel König (ed.), Latin and Arabic: Entangled Histories. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, pp. 31-121.
Danielle Jacquart (1989). Remarques préliminaires à une étude comparée des traductions médicales de Gérard de Crémona, in Geneviéve Contamine (ed.), Traduction et traducteurs au Moyen Âge. Actes du colloque international du CNRS organisé à Paris, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, les 26-28 mai 1986. Paris: Éd. du CNRS, pp. 109-118.
Danielle Jacquart (1992). Les traductions médicales de Gérard de Crémone, in Pierluigi Pizzamiglio (ed.), Gerardo da Cremona. Annali della Biblioteca statale e libreria civica di Cremona XLI (1990). Cremona: Libreria del Convegno editrice, pp. 557-70.
De Lacy O’Leary (1949). How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Dimitri Gutas (1998). Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th c.). New York: Routledge. Douglas Dunlop (1959). «The Translations of al-Bitriq and Yahya (Yuhanna) b. alBitriq», Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 91 (3-4), pp. 140-150.
Euro+Med (2006). Euro+Med PlantBase - the information resource for Euro-Mediterranean plant diversity, http://ww2.bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/ [15/11/2021].
Glen Cooper (2016). «Hunayn ibn Ishaq’s Galen Translations and Greco-Arabic Philology: Some Observations from the Crises (De crisibus) and the Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis)», Oriens, 44, pp. 1-43.
Glen Cooper (2019). Hunayn ibn Ishaq and the Creation of an Arabic Galen, in Petros Vallianatos and Barbara Zipser (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen. Leiden: Brill, pp. 179-195.
Ignacio Ferrando (2001). Introducción a la historia de la lengua árabe. Nuevas perspectivas. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.
Iolanda Ventura (2019). Galenic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Galen’s On the Capacities of Simple Drugs and its Reception between the Sixth and Fourteenth Century, in Petros Bouras-Vallianatos y Barbara Zipser (eds.). Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 393–433.
John Lamoreaux (2016). Hunayn ibn Ishaq on His Galen Translations. Provo: Brigham Young University Press.
Kees Versteegh (1997). The Arabic Linguistic Tradition, Part of the Landmarks in Linguistic Thought series, vol. 3. London: Routledge.
Manfred Ullmann (2002). Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Marina Díaz Marcos (2021). De simplicibus medicinis liber VI. Edición crítica y estudio de la traducción latina de Gerardo de Cremona, tesis doctoral, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, http://hdl.handle.net/10578/28679 [19/11/2021].
Matteo Martelli and Lucia Raggetti (2016). «Stone by Stone: Building the Graeco-Arabic Edition of Galen’s On Simple Drugs, Book IX», Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin, 2, pp. 48-58.
Myriam Salama-Carr (1990). La traduction à l’époque abbasside. Paris: Didier Érudition. Noelia Ramón García (2002). Los orígenes de la traducción científica: la casa de la sabiduría, in Laura Cruz García, Víctor González Ruiz and Elena Pérez Ramírez, Actas de las IIª Jornadas de Jóvenes Traductores. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, pp. 169-178.
Peter Pormann (2011). «The Formation of the Arabic Pharmacology: between Tradition and Innovation», Annals of Science, 68 (4), pp. 493-515.
Siam Bhayro (2017). «Galen in Syriac: Rethinking Old Assumptions», Aramaic Studies, 15, pp. 132-154.
Silvia Nora Arroñada (2008). «Algunas reflexiones sobre la medicina andalusí», Iacobus, 23-24, pp. 121-140.
Uwe Vagelpohl (2018). The user-friendly Galen: Hunayn ibn Ishaq and the adaptation of Greek medicine for a new audience, in Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Sophia Xenophontos (eds.), Greek Medical Literature and its Readers: From Hippocrates to Islam and Byzantium. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 133-130.
Sara Solá Portillo is a PhD candidate and predoctoral researcher at the Department of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Málaga (Spain), where she also teaches Arabic applied to Translation and Interpreting. She is about to complete her thesis about the Arabic translations of Galen’s On Simple Drugs in codirection with the University of
Castilla-La Mancha. As part of the research group Interpretes Medicinae, she has already published her first academic works and has participated in international conferences and workshops. Recently, she has also completed a research stay at the Julius-MaximiliansUniversität of Würbzurg.
Dana Zaben (Jordan, 1992) has a degree in Hispanic Philology and English Philology from the University of Jordan. In 2015, she obtained her Master’s Degree in Higher Hispanic Studies at the University of Seville, thanks to the Erasmus Mundus scholarship. She started her doctorate in Research in Humanities, Arts and Education at the University of CastillaLa Mancha in 2019. Her current research deals with Arabic translations of Galenic works: a lexicographical study. Currently, she works as a researcher at the Toledo School of Translators, and forms part of the group Interpretes Medicinae (INTERMED).
This paper aims to trace the evolution of medical Arabic from the Arabian Peninsula to alAndalus and Medieval Europe. We will describe the historical context behind this evolution, tracing the reasons and factors behind the development of Arabic from being a nomadic dialect to the language of science and medicine in the Middle Ages. Thus, in this article we will focus on three points: (1) the evolution of Arabic inside the Arabian Peninsula, (2) the Graeco-Arabic translation movement of the 9th century, and (3) its impact in al-Andalus and the Latin translations of the 12th century. Finally, we will present a lexicological study of the pharmacology treaty On simple drugs by Galen, which is a paradigmatic example of the Arabic-Latin versions of Greek medical works and thus illustrates perfectly the role played by Arabic in the transmission of Ancient science to the Medieval world.
Arabic, Medicine, Middle Ages, Translation, Arabian Peninsula, al-Andalus
Arabic writings have often been misinterpreted following the quote “traduttore, traditore”, which has brought us so famous and happy mistakes. One of them, in which Borges himself incurred, was the use of a fallacious translation of the famous Mu‘allaqa by the pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma, which we can find in his short story “The Search for Averroes”.1
To him, as he expresses through his character words when having a deep conversation with Averroes, “In his mu‘allaqa, Zuhayr says that in the course of his eighty years of pain and glory many is the time he has seen destiny trample men, like an old blind camel”, although the original in Arabic tells us something quite different.
Thanks to Borges’s writings we will follow this literary connection between the Arabian Peninsula and Córdoba, in Averroes’s imaginary steps as dreamed by Borges, where we will observe Averroes’ futile attempt to understand Aristotle’s concepts of “tragedy” and “comedy” in his Poetics.
Does Averroes seek, or is he sought? At the beginning of the story, he will be the subject of the search, the seeker; as the story progresses, Borges will enter the scene as the Arab philosopher disappears from the action, making a theatrical exit. Sitting next to a desk, just as the philosopher was previously, Borges will feel defeated and unable to immerse himself
in his thought, in the same way that the dramatic concepts of the Stagirite could not be apprehended in Arab lands.
In this way, from a first approach to translation and pre-Islamic poetry, we will deal with the debate between the old and new metaphors that the story raises based on the verses of Zuhayr, and that is strongly related to the notion of Orientalism that sometimes has permeated the way the West has wanted to read and translate the Arab cultural and literary imaginary.
On the other hand, we will stop at this unexpected aesthetics of failure to discuss how Borges’ mistake is nothing but an excellent starting point for writing. We will therefore conclude how these misunderstandings that have always been present in translation have only favoured an enrichment in the journey of ideas. And that although on some occasions the misinterpretation has caused the conflict, on many others it has delivered us new images and concepts. Through an unusual approach that weaves a warp of ink and word between the Iberian and Arabian Peninsula, we will wonder what truth lies behind Zuhayr’s verse. Likewise, we will reflect on the poetic impact that Borges found in this symbol of the wandering camel.
Regarding the methodology, the main point of interest has been that of pre-Islamic poetry and the studies carried out around it, highlighting the work on Arabic Poetry and Poetics by Adonis and the translations by Corriente and Monferrer. Regarding Borges’ work, we will rely on the ideas of authors such as Umberto Eco, Luce López-Baralt or Cortázar.
the blind cAMel
First of all, it would be interesting if we made a stop along the way to analyze the original verse in Arabic of Zuhayr’s mu‘allaqa and contrast it with the English version that Borges would read and the Spanish translation proposed by Corriente and Monferrer.2
So, ra’aytu -l-manaya khabt ‘ashwa’ man tasib / tumit-hu wa-man tukhti’ yu‘amir fayahra. We could understand -l-manaya [ايانلما] as the “fate” or the “destiny of death”, khabt [طبخ] as “beating; striking”, similar to tasib [بصت], which could also be interpreted as “afflict”; and ‘ashwa’ [ءاوْشع] would be translated as “darkness” or “blindness”. As we can see, the interpolation of reading a camel in these verses could well be due to that orientalizing reading that Edward Said worked so hard against3 and that here makes visible the non-innocent hand of the translator that contributes to the proliferation of stereotypes:
2 Federico Corriente Córdoba y Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala (2005). Las diez mu‘allaqat. Poesía y panorama de Arabia en vísperas del islam. Madrid: Hiperión.
3 Edward Said (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
the Arab as a desert Bedouin who travels by camel and who uses this as a paradigm of the world that surrounds him. Undoubtedly, the work of the translator has a political aspect that, when it is ignored, can incur the distortion of the Other.
The Arabists Federico Corriente and Juan Pedro Monferrer,4 although the former already made a translation in 1974,5 proposed in their book Las diez mu‘allaqat. Poesía y panorama de Arabia en vísperas del islam a fairly faithful translation into Arabic:
Cansado estoy de pesares en la vida: quien vive ochenta años, júrote que se fatiga Sé lo de hoy, y aún antes, lo de ayer, más ignorante soy del mañana Veo que la muerte ciegamente golpea: al que alcanza mata, y al que marra, vive y envejece
What verse in English did Borges have to read to later use in his story? Let us contrast the Spanish version, closer to Arabic, with the English version, which distorts the meaning somewhat more:
I have grown weary of the troubles of life; and he, who lives eighty years will, may you have no other father if you doubt grow weary. And I know what has happened to-day and yesterday, before it, but verily, of the knowledge of what will happen tomorrow; I am ignorant. I see death is like the blundering of a blind camel; –him whom he meets he kills, and he whom he misses lives and will become old –
It is evident at first glance that the English translation is much less light on the verse, sticking with an excess of literality that comes from the enormous difficulty involved in translating the verses of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, whose hemistiches were loaded with meaning and used to close in on themselves. This forces the translator to have to find ingenious formulas to respect the original meaning without betraying the form too much. Here, however, it would seem that the English translator has preferred to allow himself to be carried away by a very extensive explanation that, paradoxically, turns into something different when arriving at the verse in question about the “blind camel”. Until then, his behavior has been repetitive and baroque in style: it is enough to
4
5
Federico Corriente Córdoba y Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala (2005). Op. Cit., p. 205.
Federico Corriente Córdoba (1974). Las mu‘allaqat: antología y panorama de Arabia preislámica. Madrid: Instituto hispano-árabe de cultura, p. 97. It should be said that the original 1974 translation by Federico Corriente is identical to the one we reproduce here. Only the desire to use the most recent version has led us to keep this bibliographic reference.
compare the second hemistich of the second verse, which although in English it says “but verily, of the knowledge of what will happen tomorrow; I am ignorant”, in Spanish only five words are used to convey the same meaning “más ignorante soy del mañana”.
And why, one might ask, does it infer that death is like “the blundering of a blind camel” when in Spanish they do not hesitate to assume that it is death who strikes?
In his article “Las dos maneras de traducir”,6 Borges tries to deconstruct the historical meaning that has been given to this Italian expression whose paronymy has served to condemn the translators as “irreparable bunglers, fathers of frangollo and lies”.7 The Argentinian writer tries to explain how the “pun-shaped sayings seem prefigured and as recommended by the language”,8 so that they are easily memorizable and, therefore, slavishly reproduced.
For him, however, even the verses are translatable, although the performance of the translation does not mean less difficulties. Following the Werke de Novalis, he will argue that “each word has a peculiar meaning, others connotative and others entirely arbitrary”, to finally conclude that “words become incantations and poetry wants to be magic”.9
It will establish two kinds of translations: literality and periphrasis; the first of the romantic mentality that extols man; the second, of the classics, which seek the work of art to the detriment of the artist. He will not hesitate to affirm that translation will seem to him a more interesting operation of the mind than writing, taking into account that he does not conceive of any other form of translation that is not the recreation of the work from the use of the text as a pretext; even within the same language, translation will be, inevitably, impossible.10
García Márquez will influence this Borgian idea by considering translation as the best way to read, despite being the “most difficult, the most ungrateful and the worst hit” since “in every word, in every sentence, in every emphasis of in a novel there is always a secret ulterior motive that only the author knows”.11
In “Translate, traduire, tradurre, traducir”, Julio Cortázar12 insists on the random and fallible activity of the translator, which may even differ completely from the first starting text even though it is no longer a translation, but a literal reproduction of it, as he does well
6 Jorge Luis Borges (1997). «Las dos maneras de traducir», La Prensa, 1 August 1926.
7 Ibidem, p. 256.
8 Idem, p. 256.
9 Idem, p. 257.
10 Jorge Luis Borges (1975). «La traducción me parece una operación del espíritu más interesante que la escritura», La opinión, 21 September 1975.
11 Gabriel García Márquez (1982). «Los pobres traductores buenos», El País, 21 July 1982.
12 Julio Cortázar (2007). «Translate, traduire, tradurre, traducir», in Obras completas. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores.
in reminding us when mentioning Borges’s story Pierre Ménard, author of Don Quixote, in which a twentieth-century French writer’s attempt to literally rewrite Don Quixote will lead to a plethora of new meanings and readings not found in the Cervantes text. “Intimately, Cervantes loved the supernatural”, will propose Borges.13
The Mexican and Nobel Prize in Literature, Octavio Paz, shed some light on this matter in his essay Traducción: literatura y literalidad,14 where he resolves that each language is its own vision of the world: the sun sung by the Aztec differs from the sun of the hymn Egyptian although the star, above, is unique. At the same time that languages are the tool that allows us to communicate, they also imprison us behind an invisible mesh of sounds and meanings.
It is in this interstitial space between two languages that translators operate, the paradox of which is that they suppress the differences between one language and another while revealing them more fully. Hence, a literal translation is not impossible, but it is not directly a translation, but a device that helps us to read the text in its original language.
Paz will reject the annoying idea of the untranslatability of poetry peremptorily based on the warp of connotations that accompany it. He advocates the universality of poetry and the translation understood by the preservation of the plurality of senses, moving away from the unbridled love of verbal matter.
Umberto Eco will also dismantle some myths about the nature of translation, since “in a translation, not only the relationship between two languages is at stake, but also the relationship between two cultures”.15 Here is the capital fact highlighted in the translation of the verse of the pre-Islamic poem: the Western-centric and Orientalizing vision diminishes the relationship between the culture of origin and the recipient of said poetic image. How do we relate to another culture when we mistakenly induce certain stereotypical prejudices when transmitting and translating it? Without a doubt, it is an immense task to avoid the clarifying translation that is lost in explanatory paraphrases that kill the rhythm and distort the poetry.
The story of “La busca de Averroes”, originally published in 1947 and compiled in El Aleph, imagines the difficulty of the Islamic philosopher from Cordoba to translate the Poetics of Aristotle by not being able to understand what a play was, due to this the absence of theatrical performances in the cultural environment of Averroes, unlike in ancient Greece. In the story, Averroes accidentally observes a group of children who pretend to be other people;
13 Jorge Luis Borges (1980). Magias parciales del Quijote, in El Quijote de Cervantes. Madrid: George Haley, p. 103, apud Luce López-Baralt (2017). «Carta de batalla por la magia cervantina», Philologia hispalensis, 31 (2), p. 85.
14 Octavio Paz (1971). Traducción: literatura y literalidad. Barcelona: Tusquets.
15 Umberto Eco (2004). «Aristóteles entre Averroes y Borges», Variaciones Borges, 17, pp. 66.
later he will even hear a traveller’s description of the theatrical performance he once saw in a distant land, and despite everything he errs in his understanding that the tragedies and comedies about which the Stagirite writes are a type of art that goes beyond mere literature.
The process of writing the story is supposedly parallel and analogous to the story itself: Borges writes in an epilogue that his persistence in understanding Averroes was as condemned from the beginning as the attempt by the Cordovan to decipher the drama: “Sentí que Averroes, queriendo imaginar lo que es un drama sin haber sospechado lo que es un teatro, no era más absurdo que yo, queriendo imaginar a Averroes, sin otro material que unos adarmes de Renan, de Lane y de Asín Palacios”.16
Let us now move on to the occasions in which the metaphor of the blind camel is mentioned in the Borgian tale, all of them during the conversation that Averroes has with some friends and in which, among other things, they will discuss the possible need for renewal of the poetic images. Here, Abdalmálik advocates banishing the “old metaphors”: Todos aprobaron ese dictamen. Se encarecieron las virtudes del árabe, que es el idioma que usa Dios para dirigir a los ángeles; luego, de la poesía de los árabes. Abdalmálik, después de ponderarla debidamente, motejó de anticuados a los poetas que en Damasco o en Córdoba se aferraban a imágenes pastoriles y a un vocabulario beduino. Dijo que era absurdo que un hombre ante cuyos ojos se dilataba el Guadalquivir celebrara el agua de un pozo. Urgió la conveniencia de renovar las antiguas metáforas; dijo que cuando Zuhair comparó al destino con un camello ciego, esa figura pudo suspender a la gente, pero que cinco siglos de admiración la habían gastado. Todos aprobaron ese dictamen, que ya habían escuchado muchas veces, de muchas bocas. Averroes callaba. Al fin habló, menos para los otros que para él mismo.17
16 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., p. 588. English translation as follows apud Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Collected Fictions, p. 241. Translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: Penguin Books.
“I felt that Averroës, trying to imagine what a play is without ever having suspected what a theater is, was no more absurd than I, trying to im agine Averroës yet with no more material than a few snatches from Renan, Lane, and Asín Palacios”.
17 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., p. 586. English translation as follows apud Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Op. Cit., p. 239.
To that verdict, they all gave their nod. They extolled the virtues of Arabic—the language used by Allah, they recalled, when He instructs the angels—and then the poetry of the Arabs. After according that poetry its due praise, abu-al-Hasan dismissed those other poets who, writing in Córdoba or Damascus, clung to pastoral images and Bedouin vocabulary—outmoded, he called them. He said it was absurd for a man whose eyes beheld the wide Guadalquivir to compose odes upon the water of a well. It was time, he argued, that the old metaphors be renewed; back when Zuhayr compared fate to a blind camel, he said, the figure was arresting—but five hundred years of admiration had worn it very thin. To that verdict, which they had all heard many times before,
Averroes, however, will not share the opinion expressed by Abdalmálik despite his eloquent speech; for that there is still room for wonder:
—Con menos elocuencia—dijo Averroes—pero con argumentos congéneres, he defendido alguna vez la proposición que mantiene Abdalmálik. En Alejandría se ha dicho que sólo es incapaz de una culpa quien ya la cometió y ya se arrepintió; para estar libre de un error, agreguemos, conviene haberlo profesado. Zuhair, en su mohalaca, dice que en el decurso de ochenta años de dolor y de gloria, ha visto muchas veces al destino atropellar de golpe a los hombres, como un camello ciego; Abdalmálik entiende que esa figura ya no puede maravillar.18
He will follow Averroes’ vindication of Zuhayr’s verse, which did not seek ephemeral astonishment, but the expression of a universal sentiment in its breadth:
A ese reparo cabría contestar muchas cosas. La primera, que si el fin del poema fuera el asombro, su tiempo no se mediría por siglos, sino por días y por horas y tal vez por minutos. La segunda, que un famoso poeta es menos inventor que descubridor. Para alabar a Ibn-Sháraf de Berja, se ha repetido que sólo él pudo imaginar que las estrellas en el alba caen lentamente como las hojas de los árboles; ello, si fuera cierto, evidenciaría que la imagen es baladí. La imagen que un solo hombre puede formar es la que no toca a ninguno. Infinitas cosas hay en la tierra; cualquiera puede equipararse a cualquiera. Equiparar estrellas con hojas no es menos arbitrario que equipararlas con peces o con pájaros. En cambio, nadie no sintió alguna vez que el destino es fuerte y es torpe, que es inocente y es también inhumano.19
from many mouths, they all likewise gave their nod. Averroës, however, kept silent. At last he spoke, not so much to the others as to himself.
18 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., p. 586. English translation as follows apud Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Op. Cit., p. 239-240.
“Less eloquently,” he said, “and yet with similar arguments, I myself have sometimes defended the proposition argued now by abu-al-Hasan. In Alexandria there is a saying that only the man who has already committed a crime and repented of it is incapable of that crime; to be free of an erroneous opinion, I myself might add, one must at some time have professed it. In his mu‘allaqa, Zuhayr says that in the course of his eighty years of pain and glory many is the time he has seen destiny trample men, like an old blind camel; abu-al-Hasan says that that figure no longer makes us marvel.
19 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., p. 586. English translation as follows apud Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Op. Cit., p. 240.
One might reply to that objection in many ways. First, that if the purpose of the poem were to as-
Finally, as he did in “Pierre Ménard, autor del Quijote”, Borges persists in the cascade of readings that time has conferred on the busy image of the blind camel. If once its terms were only two, now well they have multiplied as because of the abominable mirrors:
Para esa convicción, que puede ser pasajera o continua, pero que nadie elude, fue escrito el verso de Zuhair. No se dirá mejor lo que allí se dijo. Además (y esto es acaso lo esencial de mis reflexiones), el tiempo, que despoja los alcázares, enriquece los versos. El de Zuhair, cuando éste lo compuso en Arabia, sirvió para confrontar dos imágenes, la del viejo camello y la del destino; repetido ahora, sirve para memoria de Zuhair y para confundir nuestros pesares con los de aquel árabe muerto. Dos términos tenía la figura y hoy tiene cuatro. El tiempo agranda el ámbito de los versos y sé de algunos que a la par de la música, son todo para todos los hombres.20
Note how Borges, despite not having read Zuhayr’s poem in its original language, and despite having a partially fallacious translation, is able to connect with the heart of the verse and extract the gaze with which the pre-Islamic poet observed the world. that surrounded him. Borges knew how to see the universal in the orientalizing gaze of the English translator.
Among other things, this Borgian text is at the same time “a story whose protagonist is a writer, or there are two, or two who are one and all”,21 but also an essay on translation and language.
Is Averroes the subject of the search or the seeker, is he searching or is he being sought?
tound, its life would be not measured in centuries but in days, or hours, or perhaps even minutes. Second, that a famous poet is less an inventor than a discoverer. In praise of ibn-Sharaf of Berkha, it has many times been said that only he was capable of imagining that the stars of the morning sky fall gently, like leaves falling from the trees; if that were true, it would prove only that the image is trivial. The image that only a single man can shape is an image that interests no man. There are infinite things upon the earth; any one of them can be compared to any other. Comparing stars to leaves is no less arbitrary than comparing them to fish, or birds. On the other hand, every man has surely felt at some moment in his life that destiny is powerful yet clumsy, innocent yet inhuman.
20 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., pp. 586-587. English translation as follows apud Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Op. Cit., p. 240.
It was in order to record that feeling, which may be fleeting or constant but which no man may escape experiencing, that Zuhayr’s line was written. No one will ever say better what Zuhayr said there. Furthermore (and this is perhaps the essential point of my reflections), time, which ravages fortresses and great cities, only enriches poetry. At the time it was composed by him in Arabia, Zuhayr’s poetry served to bring together two images—that of the old camel and that of destiny; repeated today, it serves to recall Zuhayr and to conflate our own tribulations with those of that dead Arab. The figure had two terms; today, it has four. Time widens the circle of the verses, and I myself know some verses that are, like music, all things to all men.
21 Marcelo Abadi (1999). «Averroes y su trémula esclava pelirroja», Variaciones Borges, 7, pp. 166.
At first, the search for the meaning of the words “tragedy” and “comedy” that swarm in the Poetics will be active: the Commentator will review volumes and texts; later, he will become passive through boys playing in the yard and conversations with friends.
“How then to understand the disappearance of Averroes?”22 Abadi wondered about the lines that close the story. He will read it in terms of theatrical representation: Averroes will make an exit, giving rise to the end of the act that shows us another character, also another writer. Borges will occupy the scene with an ellipsis of eight centuries. He will also be sitting next to his desk, as Averroes was, trying “to understand the meandering thoughts of the Cordovan, as he had tried to understand the reasons of the Greek”.23
The outcome will be the same for both writers: defeat, with slight differentiating nuances: “Averroes wanted to know what a drama was and did not find out that he was the actor of one that would be renewed many times. Borges wanted to penetrate the spirit of Averroes, and only managed to dream of an “Averroes”, the evanescent Averroes of the last line of the story. Averroes did not know of his failure, while Borges did, among other reasons because he had wanted it”.24
This is undoubtedly one of Borges’s most fascinating tales, brilliantly weaving the relationships between the classics and the present, and the appropriation that we make of them. It would be interesting to delve into the medieval reception of Aristotelian Poetics and Rhetoric to add more prisms to the western reception of Arabic poetry under the orientalizing image of the blind camel. Let’s use Umberto Eco’s guide for this.
In his article “Aristóteles entre Averroes y Borges”, Eco will remind us of the two great Aristotelian discoveries of the Poetics: tragedy and metaphor. In his meticulous analysis of tragic action, which in our century has been applied to all forms of narrativity, including the cinematographic one, tragedy is understood as “mimesis, that is, the imitation of an action, in which a character, neither better nor worse than us - in which we can, therefore, identify ourselves - terrible events, adventures, dramatic recognitions and reversals of fortune happen to him until his destiny is fulfilled in a final catastrophe in which, in the face of his misfortune, we feel at the same time pity and terror”.25
In us, this experience will produce a kind of purification, catharsis. For Eco, this lesson would serve to turn the Poetics into a fundamental text of all civilizations, but the Stagirite will go further by unravelling the cognitive nature of the metaphor; the most ornamental aspects will be relegated to the background since metaphor, and by extension every rhetorical figure, has to serve “to make us see things in a different light and, therefore, better”.26
However, certain translation incidents caused the medieval reception of these concepts
22 Ibidem, p. 170.
23 Idem, p. 170.
24 Idem, p. 170.
25 Umberto Eco (2004), Op. Cit., p. 70.
26 Ibidem, p. 70.
to be quite confusing. It should be remembered that the Latin Aristotle appeared very late in medieval culture, so it did not have a noteworthy influence.27 In the first centuries after the year 1000 “it was easier to translate from Arabic than from Greek and therefore the first thing that the Middle Ages knows about Aristotle’s poetics and rhetoric comes from Arabic texts translated into terrible Latin”,28 hence the fundamental importance of the Cordovan Commentator. In turn, Averroes did not know Greek, and hardly Syriac, so his reading of Aristotle came from an Arabic translation of the tenth century, which in turn came from a Syriac version. This funny game of shifting mirrors, as Borges would like to call it, is suggested through the incitement that Eco proposes to the reader: “Let’s imagine then what the Latin reader could understand about Aristotle, from the translation that Hernán Alemán had made of an Arabic text the which, in turn, was trying to understand a Syriac translation of an unknown Greek text”.29
We can thus affirm that the Borgian artifact is not a simple creation of his fantasy, but that it corresponds admirably to a real event. To this almost divinatory capacity of Borges, Eco will explain with admiration how the Argentine writer was able to find “a suggestion, a clue in an encyclopaedia entry, and from there he drew a series of reflections that make us believe that he had read and understood background texts that I had never really read”.30 As it happens to us before his exceptional understanding of Zuhayr’s poem despite the use of a licentious translation.
In this intricate game of mirrors between seeker and sought, writer and written, lover and beloved, Martínez Millán suggests that Borges’s story “celebrates the hermeneutical procedure that the Andalusian Muslim philosopher applies in his commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics”.31 To do this, he will explore a “new way of looking at the process of literary composition in which, despite emerging from frustration and failure, the spiritual condition is creatively overcome.32
And here is one of the key ideas that connect the pre-Islamic poetic image with the Borgian tale: error can serve as an excellent starting point for writing. That treacherous translator evoked at the beginning of the article is nothing more than an alien agent who sows the text with a cascade of new interpretations. Martínez Millán will call this “the Aesthetics of failure”, which he will consider a starting point in the writing process, an aesthetic phenomenon that reflects “the process of a defeat”. confession of his own limitations, thus detonating the story.33 The frustration of the ignorant Argentine writer of
27 Idem, p. 76.
28 Idem, p. 76.
29 Idem, p. 78.
30 Idem, p. 76.
31 Hernán Martínez Millán (2020). «Averroës’s Search: The Aesthetics of Failure as a Starting Point for Writing», Variaciones Borges, 49, pp. 257.
32 Ibidem, p. 258.
33 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., p. 588.
Arabic in search of the deep meaning of the existence of an ignorant Arabic writer of Greek will be transformed into the confession of his own limitations, thus detonating the story.
the old-new MetAPhor debAte
Another interesting point to take into account is the debate on the old and new metaphors that Averroes maintains with the rest of the guests at Farach’s house. In it, Abdálmalik defends the need to create new metaphors, for which he uses the analogy of the blind camel as a poetic image eaten away by the passage of time. According to him, the metaphor had ceased to be effective at its end: “cinco siglos de admiración la habían gastado”.34
Averroes will reject this position stating that the purpose of the poem is not to surprise the reader, but rather to find an inescapable truth that continues to strike human experience: “dos términos tenía la figura y hoy tiene cuatro. El tiempo agranda el ámbito de los versos”.35 Averroes proclaims that what keeps a poem alive is the “possibility that its original meaning extends its scope”.36
The value of a metaphor, in the words of Averroes –read Borges–, will reside in its “possibility of insertion in other contexts beyond the context of production”.37 And there is no Borgian work that better develops this idea of the context of the reader’s reception of a work than his famous short story “Pierre Ménard, autor del Quijote”, in which Borges constructs a bio-bibliographical profile and review of a fictional French author of the 20th century that he proposed to rewrite Don Quixote and succeeded in multiplying the ways of reading Cervantes’ work. The Argentine writer shows us how even the old, when good, accepts multiple new readings as long as the reader is willing to read with new eyes, washing his gaze and re-educating his way of approaching the world, in a commitment to a very personal poetics of the gaze.
In this article we have started from a fallacious translation of a pre-Islamic verse attributed to Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma that Borges adopted from the English translation consulted by him to use it in his famous short story “La busca de Averroes”. This image of the blind camel interpolated by the orientalizing gaze of the translator has allowed us, on the one hand, to be able to comment on the functions of the translator in analogy with the Italian expression “traduttore, traditore”.
The task of rendering foreign words, or even the original, the meaning of a text hides a series of implications that can have a great impact on how two cultures relate to each other.
34 Ibidem, p. 586.
35 Idem, p. 587.
36 Silvia G. Dapía (1999). «The Myth of the Framework in Borges’s ‘Averroes’ Search’», Variaciones Borges, 7, p. 153.
37 Ibidem, p. 154.
The political aspect of any translation is unavoidable, which can contribute to feeding or deconstructing stereotypes that have been transmitted for centuries. A translator has to question her relationship with the Other before undertaking this task.
However, the continuous palimpsest of literary interference that has been the continuous evolution of connected humanity allows us to speak of error as a starting point for the creation of something new. In the case of Borges, this “process of a defeat” serves the Argentine as an insatiable source for writing. The blind camel will make you see in all its complexity and richness the poetic sentiment behind Zuhayr’s verses; and thus, in his fallible attempt to understand Averroes, he will identify with him. And although he is not capable of grasping the ultimate reality of the Cordovan philosopher, he reaches the maximum that an individual can propose, identification with the Other beyond the barriers of language.
Borges’s genius will reside in his way of constructing a poetics of metaphor from a bad translation, a fact that enmeshes us with the debate between the old and the new, because according to the Argentine, in the mouth of Averroes, and in the light from the interpolated image of the dazzling blind camel, the old, when good, will not stop opening up and multiplying to offer each new reader a new meaning. The poem will rise like a waterfall plummeting into a maelström of meanings.
Finally, it would be beautiful to imagine how much Borges would have liked to discover his mistake, he would surely have smiled in those last days of his life in which, despite the old age of his body, he continued to learn and raged against the dying of the light. Faced with the impossibility of finding a Japanese teacher, fate brought him a tender surprise, learning the language of the desert that he visited so much in his stories, the Arabic language, the letters of the aliphate being drawn on his hand.
Menard (acaso sin quererlo) ha enriquecido mediante una técnica nueva el arte detenido y rudimentario de la lectura: la técnica del anacronismo deliberado y de las atribuciones erróneas. Esa técnica de aplicación infinita nos insta a recorrer la Odisea como si fuera posterior a la Eneida y el libro Le jardín du Centaure de Madame Henri Bachelier como si fuera de Madame Henri Bachelier. Esa técnica puebla de aventura los libros más calmosos. Atribuir a Louis Ferdinand Céline o a James Joyce la Imitación de Cristo ¿no es una suficiente renovación de esos tenues avisos espirituales?38
38 Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Op. Cit., p. 450. English translation as follows apud Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Op. Cit., p. 95.
Menard has (perhaps unwittingly) enriched the slow and rudimentary art of reading by means of a new technique—the technique of deliberate anachronism and fallacious attribution. That technique, requiring infinite patience and concentration, encourages us to read the Odyssey as though it came after the Aeneid, to read Mme. Henri Bachelier’s Le jardin du Centaure as though it were written by Mme. Henri Bachelier. This technique fills the calmest books with adventure. Attributing the Imitatio Christi to Louis Ferdinand Céline or James Joyce—is that not sufficient renovation of those faint spiritual admonitions?
Adonis (1997). Poesía y Poética Árabes. Transl. Ruiz Bravo-Villasante C., Guadarrama (Madrid): Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo.
Edward Said (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Federico Corriente Córdoba (1974). Las mu‘allaqat: antología y panorama de arabia preislámica. Madrid: Instituto hispano-árabe de cultura.
Federico Corriente Córdoba y Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala (2005). Las diez mu‘allaqat. Poesía y panorama de Arabia en vísperas del islam. Madrid: Hiperión.
Gabriel García Márquez (1982). «Los pobres traductores buenos», El País, 21 July 1982. Hernán Martínez Millán (2020). «Averroës’s Search: The Aesthetics of Failure as a Starting Point for Writing», Variaciones Borges, 49, pp. 257-282.
Jorge Luis Borges (1975). «La traducción me parece una operación del espíritu más interesante que la escritura», La opinión, 21 September 1975.
Jorge Luis Borges (1980). Magias parciales del Quijote, in El Quijote de Cervantes. Madrid: George Haley, 103-105.
Jorge Luis Borges (1984). Obras completas 1923-1972. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores
Jorge Luis Borges (1997). «Las dos maneras de traducir», La Prensa, 1 August 1926.
Jorge Luis Borges (1998). Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: Penguin Books.
Julio Cortázar (2007). «Translate, traduire, tradurre, traducir», in Obras completas. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores.
Luce López-Baralt (1999). «Borges o la mística del silencio: Lo que había al otro lado del Zahir», in A. de Toro y F. de Toro (eds.). Jorge Luis Borges. Pensamiento y saber en el siglo XX, pp. 29-70.
Luce López-Baralt (2017). «Carta de batalla por la magia cervantina», Philologia hispalensis, 31 (2), pp. 85-98.
Marcelo Abadi (1999). «Averroes y su trémula esclava pelirroja», Variaciones Borges, 7, pp. 166-177.
Octavio Paz (1971). Traducción: literatura y literalidad. Barcelona: Tusquets.
Silvia G. Dapía (1999). «The Myth of the Framework in Borges’s ‘Averroes’ Search’», Variaciones Borges, 7, pp. 147-165.
Umberto Eco (2004). «Aristóteles entre Averroes y Borges», Variaciones Borges, 17, pp. 65-85.
Arabic writings have been misinterpreted for centuries following the quote “traduttore, traditore” and even Borges fell into the error by using a wrong translation of Zuhayr’s famous Mu‘allaqat which can be read in his short story “La busca de Averroes” (“Averroes’s Search”). To him, as he expresses through his character words when having a deep
conversation with Averroes, “death is like the blundering of a blind camel”, although the original in Arabic tells us something quite different. Thanks to Borges’s writings we will follow this literary connection between the Arabian Peninsula and Córdoba, in Averroes’s imaginary steps as dreamed by Borges. What truth lies beyond that verse? What poetical impact did Borges find in the image and symbol of the wandering camel? We can just mention how the desert and the labyrinth were connected in Borges’s literary world in the same way as it is deeply related in the Arabic word al-tih, which means both desert and labyrinth at the same time. This topic intends to highlight the hidden threads that link the Arabian and Iberian Peninsula through an unusual approach.
Mu‘allaqat, Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma, Borges, Averroes, Blind Camel
Naser Dumairieh, PhD. Institut d’études religieuses - Université de Montréal. naser.dumairieh@umontreal.ca
Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 638/1240) is one of the most controversial figures in Islamic history; hundreds of books and fatwas have been written to defend and explain or to refute his ideas. The Hijaz, the center of the Islamic world and the birthplace of Islam, contributed significantly to the debates over Ibn ‘Arabi and his ideas. Ibn ‘Arabi arrived in the Hijaz for the first time at the end of Dhu al-Qa‘da or the beginning of Dhu al-Hijja 598/August 1202, coming from Cairo and passing through Jerusalem. He spent nearly three years in the Hijaz, then left in the year 601/1204-5 for Iraq, but he was in the Hijaz again for several months in the year 611/1214-5.1 In Mecca, Ibn ‘Arabi wrote some of his main texts, and he met Shaykh Majd al-Din al-Rumi (d. 618/1221), the father of Ibn ‘Arabi’s foremost student and the person who would play a prominent role in understanding and spreading Ibn ‘Arabi’s though, Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi (d. 673/1274).
Despite the short period that Ibn ‘Arabi spent in the Hijaz, his ideas found a foothold in the region and remained active there for centuries. The current paper focuses on some aspects of Akbarian thought in the Hijaz through the contribution of two Hijazi scholars who used all their knowledge to defend Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought and to interpret his ideas using a wide range of theological and philosophical references, as well as references to most areas within the Islamic tradition from its beginning until their respective centuries. These two
1 For Ibn ‘Arabi’s time in the Hijaz see Claude Addas (1993), Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn ‘Arabi, tr. Peter Kingsley. Islamic Texts Society Golden Palm Series. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, p. 197 and after; the chronological table of Ibn ‘Arabi’s life on page 296 clarifies when Ibn ‘Arabi was in the Hijaz.
scholars are al-Shaykh al-Makki al-Kazaruni (d. 926/1519-20), who collected twenty-four accusations against Ibn ‘Arabi and wrote, in Persian, a response to them in a book entitled al-Janib al-gharbi fi hall mushkilat Ibn ‘Arabi, “The Western Approach to Solving the Problems of Ibn ‘Arabi”. The second scholar is Muhammad b. Rasul al-Barzanji al-Madani (d. 1103/1691), who translated this text into Arabic, and added new original material, at the request of his students in the Hijaz.
After a short intellectual context of the polemics against Ibn ‘Arabi that situate the efforts of these two scholars in the broader Akbarian tradition, I will offer a biography of both scholars before moving to the main text to present its chapter headings in order to give a clear image of the accusations regularly leveled against Ibn ‘Arabi up to the end of the eleventh/seventeenth century. Finally, I will briefly discuss the most prominent characteristics of the debates over Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought in the Hijaz.
Osman Yahya lists 33 books defending Ibn ‘Arabi and 34 criticizing him, as well as 138 legal fatwas issued mostly by his opponents. While in the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/ fourteenth centuries there were about ten lengthy refutations of Ibn ‘Arabi, the ninth/ fifteenth century produced at least nineteen works of this kind.2 The number of both books and fatwas is in fact much higher than Yahya’s estimate.3 The polemic against Ibn ‘Arabi over the four centuries that followed his death has been surveyed by Knysh, who examined the perception of Ibn ‘Arabi’s personality and teachings by Muslim scholars during that period.4 Knysh’s work thus puts us exactly in the moment in which the works we consider here were written. A quick overview of the main critics during this period will contextualize and explain the accumulation of criticism, which had reached twenty-four points in alMakki’s time, although these criticisms were not necessarily exclusive or comprehensive. Probably the two most influential critics of Ibn ‘Arabi were Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and Sa‘d al-Din al-Taftazani (d. 791/1390).5 Ibn Taymiyya’s criticism of Ibn ‘Arabi and his
2 Osman Yahya (1964). Histoire et classification de l’œuvre d’Ibn ‘Arabi; étude critique. Damas: Institut Francais de Damas, p. 114.
3 Henry Corbin, in the introduction to the second edition of L’Imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn ‘Arabi, mentions that there are other works preserved in Iran that Yahya did not mention. See Henry Corbin (2006). L’Imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn ‘Arabi. Paris: Entrelacs, p. 19. The tenth/ sixteenth-century author al-Sakhawi (d. 902/1497) inventoried in al-Qawl al-munbin over 300 legal fatwas dealing with Ibn ‘Arabi. See Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Sakhawi (2017). Al-Qawl al-munbin ‘an tarjamat Ibn ‘Arabi, ed. ‘Abd Allah al-Shibrawi. Cairo: Dar al-Risala.
4 Alexander Knysh (1999). Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition. Albany: State University of New York Press, p. 201.
5 For the differences between the two criticisms, see Khaled El-Rouayheb (2015). Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. NY: Cambridge University Press, p. 313 and after; Knysh, Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition. Op. Cit., p. 147 and after. Knysh presents al-Taftazani’s thought from Risala fi wahdat al-wujud which is actually the same epistle as al-Bukhari’s Fadihat al-mulhidin who repeated many of his teacher’s ideas, which perhaps is the
school became an example followed by numerous scholars until our current time. In spite of the clear influence of Ibn Taymiyya’s polemic visible in most of the works that have been written against Ibn ‘Arabi, al-Taftazani’s criticism was the more serious, requiring a response from Ibn ‘Arabi’s defenders.6 Al-Taftazani’s position as the most prominent opponent of Ibn ‘Arabi is confirmed by al-Barzanji’s writings in which his main concern is to reply to alTaftazani’s ideas, while Ibn Taymiyya does not appear as a critic of Ibn ‘Arabi. Rather, as El-Rouayheb explains, Ibn ‘Arabi and his commentators shared some important but often overlooked commonalities with Ibn Taymiyya and Hanbali traditionalists.7 Nevertheless, Ibn Taymiyya’s comprehensive attack on Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought provided an exemplary source for all those contemporaries and successors who shared his opinion.
Al-Taftazani’s student ‘Ala’ al-Din Muhammad al-Bukhari (d. 841/1437) played a significant role in the ninth/fifteenth century debate over Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought. He wrote a refutation of Ibn ‘Arabi and his school entitled Fadihat al-mulhidin wa-nasihat almuwahhidin, “The Dishonoring of the Infidels and the Counseling of the Champions of God’s Unity”. According to Knysh, al-Bukhari “criticized Ibn ‘Arabi primarily as an erring philosopher, who was deluded by his undisciplined imagination into adopting his personal insights as the foundation of a cosmological teaching”.8 Knysh also identifies many parallels with Ibn Taymiyya’s ideas and notes al-Bukhari’s heavy dependence on alTaftazani’s epistle.9
Among al-Bukhari’s students, Burhan al-Din Ibrahim al-Biqa‘i (d. 885/1480) was an implacable opponent of the thought of Ibn ‘Arabi. Al-Biqa‘i launched a campaign condemning Ibn ‘Arabi and composed several lengthy polemical treaties aimed primarily at Ibn al-Farid (d. 632/1234), but also two works against Ibn ‘Arabi and his followers, Tanbih al-ghabi ila takfir Ibn ‘Arabi, “The Awakening of the Unaware to Ibn ‘Arabi’s Unbelief”, and Tahdhir al-‘ibad min ahl al-‘inad bi-bid‘at al-ittihad, “Warning the Servants of God against Those who Stubbornly Espouse the Innovation of Unity”.10 Knysh has conveniently summarized al-Biqa‘i’s catalogue of Ibn ‘Arabi’s heretical tenets,11 most of which would be addressed in al-Makki’s work.
Another opponent of Akbarian thought who has special significance for al-Makki’s
cause of this confusion. In addition, al-Bukhari’s text in many bibliographies and manuscripts is attributed to al-Taftazani. See Bakri Aladdin’s introduction to his edition of ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (1995). Al-Wujud al-Haqq. Damas: Institut francais de Damas, p. 18.
6 El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century Op. Cit., p. 283.
7
El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century Op. Cit., p. 275.
8 Knysh, Ibn ’Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition. Op. Cit., p. 147.
9 Ibidem, p. 206.
10 Both works were edited in 1372/1953 by the anti-Sufi Egyptian scholar ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Wakil under the pretentious title “The Downfall of Sufism” (Masra‘ al-Tasawwuf). For the manuscripts of the other anti-Ibn al-Farid treatises by al-Biqa‘i see Homerin, Th. Emil (1994). From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Farid, his Verse, and his Shrine. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, pp. 143-144.
11 Knysh, Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition. Op. Cit., p. 214.
and al-Barzanji’s works was the Hanafi scholar Mulla ‘Ali al-Qari (d. 1014/1606). Al-Qari refined al-Bukhari’s criticism of Ibn ‘Arabi in his al-Radd ‘ala al-qa’ilin bi-wahdat al-wujud, “Responding to the Advocates of Wahdat al-Wujud”,12 which was in fact a response to alMakki’s Persian treatise al-Janib al-gharbi. At the beginning of his work, al-Qari says that some holders of wujudi doctrine (al-ta’ifa al-wujudiyya) mention the objections against Ibn ‘Arabi and some of the wicked (radiyya) words that were attributed to him and to his followers but stresses that these objections came from superficial scholars. Then, al-Qari points out that the author, al-Makki, answered these objections with unsatisfactory, weak responses, which he, al-Qari, will now reveal to be invalid.13 At this point al-Qari begins to follow al-Makki’s order of exposition, often using the latter’s own words. In replying to al-Makki’s statements, al-Qari adopts the pattern of stating the objection against Ibn ‘Arabi, followed by al-Makki’s response to the objection, and finally his own refutation of the response.
The growth of the polemical literature against Ibn ‘Arabi was matched by apologetic works written by scholars trying to defend the thinker and interpret his ideas in a way that would comply with the shari‘a. Among these apologists were al-Sha‘rani (d. 973/1566) and al-Nabulusi (d. 1143/1731) in the Arab world, Shah Wali Allah (d. 1176/ 1762) in India, and ‘Abd al-Ra’uf Singkili (d. 1105/1693) in Indonesia. One can also point to Safi al-Din al-Qushashi (d. 1071/1661) and Mulla Ibrahim al-Kurani (d. 1101/1690) in Medina, in addition to our two scholars, al-Makki and al-Barzanji.
In the introduction of his book, al-Barzanji states that in 922/1516 Sultan Selim b. Bayezid ordered al-Shaykh al-Makki to write a response to the accusations against Ibn ‘Arabi. Al-Makki proceeded by identifying twenty-four objections and then wrote a response to each objection. The book was completed on 18 Shawwal 924/1518 in the city of Edirne.14
The Sultan’s choice of al-Makki to write this response implies that the later must have been a well-known and celebrated scholar, but strangely enough the historical record provides little information about his life and career. Al-Makki came from a celebrated family that had its origins in the city of “Kazarun” in Iraq. Hajji Khalifa in his Kashf alzunun mentions al-Makki and his book under the entry for Fusus al-hikam:
12 Mulla ’Ali al-Qari’s books were published by Ali Rida b. Abd Allah Ali Rida (1995). Damascus: Dar alMa’mun li-l-Turath, 1995.
13 Al-Qari, al-Radd ‘ala al-qa’ilin bi-wahdat al-wujud Op. Cit., p. 67.
14 Abu al-Fath Muhammad b. Muzaffar al-Din al-Makki (1985). Al-Janib al-gharbi fi hall mushkilat Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi, ed. Najib Mayil Harawi. Tehran: Intisharat Mauga, p. 219.
And [one who] supported him [Ibn ‘Arabi] [was] al-Shaykh alMakki Abu al-Fath Muhammad b. Muzaffar al-Din Muhammad b. Hamid al-Din ‘Abd Allah known as Shaykh Makki, who died in the year …,15 in a Persian treatise called it al-Janib al-gharbi fi hall mushkilat Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi, and he arranged it in two chapters and a conclusion.16
Later historical sources only repeat Hajji Khalifa’s words.17 The only author who recorded the date of his death is al-Baghdadi, who in Hadiyyat al-‘arifin states that it occurred in 926 AH [1519-20 CE].18
The most authentic information about the author comes from his own work, where we find the statement: “I am the earthly pauper, the composer of this book, Abu al-Fath Muhammad b. Muzaffar al-Din Muhammad b. Hamid al-Din ‘Abd Allah al-Siddiqi, best known as al-Shaykh al-Makki”.19 Al-Barzanji in the introduction of his book adds “al-Ash‘ari al-Shafi‘i”.20 The Persian original and Turkish translation of al-Makki’s work have been published; however, neither contains any additional information about al-Shaykh al-Makki other than what can be found in the Arabic sources.21 Further information can be obtained from Bursali Mehmet Tahir’s Ottoman Turkish work Tarjamat hal wa fada’il Shaykh Akbar Muhyi al-Din ‘Arabi, where the author attributes a commentary on Fusus al-hikam to alMakki and said that he was one of Jami’s (d. 898/1492) students.22
However, valuable information about al-Makki’s life can be found in another of his books entitled ‘Ayn al-hayat fi ma‘rifat al-dhat wa-l-af‘al wa-l-sifat, “The Source of Life in Knowing [God’s] Essence, Actions, and Attributes”.23 In this book, al-Makki neglects to
15 The date of his death is not mentioned in this edition.
16 Mustafa b. ‘Abd Allah known as Hajji Hajji Khalifa (n.d), Kashf al-zunun ‘an asami al-kutub wa-l-Funun, ed. Muhammad Sharaf al-Din Yaltaqaya. Bierut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi. Vol. 2, p. 1264.
17
Isma‘il al-Baghdadi (n.d). Iydah al-Makun fi al-Dhayl ‘ala Kashf al-zunun. Bierut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi. P. 359.
18 Isma‘il al-Baghdadi (n.d). Hadiyyat al-‘Arifin asma’ al-mu’allifin wa-athar al-musannifin. Bierut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi. Vol. 2, p. 228.
19 Muhamad b. Rasul al-Barzanji (2021). Al-Jadhib al-ghaybi ila al-Janib al-gharbi fi hall mushkilat alShaykh Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-‘Arabi, ed. Naser Dumairieh. Beirut: Dar al-Madar al-Islami, p. 591.
20 Al-Barzanji, Al-Jadhib al-ghaybi. Op. Cit., p. 66.
21 Najib Mayil Harawi edited the Persian edition, as I mentioned earlier. In 2004 a Turkish edition appeared, entitled Ibn ‘Arabi müdafaası, translated by Mirza-zade Ahmed Neyli and edited by Halil Baltaci (Fatih, Istanbul: Gelenek, 2004). The translation into Turkish dates back to the year 1148 AH and was originally entitled “al-Fadl al-Wahbi fi Tarjamat al-Janib al-Gharbi” by the translator Neyli (d. 1161 AH); see Köprülü Manuscripts Catalogues, Makhtutat Maktabat Kubrili, compiled by Ramazan Sesen, Cevat Izgi, and Cemil Akpinar, (Istanbul: 1986), vol.2, 459, under the number 118.
22 Mehmet Tahir Bursali (1329 [1911]). Terceme-i hal va fezail-i Shaykh-i Ekber Muhyiddin ’Arabi. Dar Sa‘adat, p. 24.
23 This work was published commercially under the title Kashf ma Yuraddu bihi ‘ala al-Fusus, ed. Ahmad Farid al-Mazidi (2008). Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya. [Henceforth ‘Ayn al-hayat].
mention his birthplace at the beginning of his travelogue, but it seems that it was Mecca due to the fact that he refers to his return there as returning to his homeland. His travels took him first to Cairo, due to an interest in al-Futuhat and al-Fusus and his desire to seek out a teacher. Then, he moved to Damascus, where he stayed for a short time close to Ibn ‘Arabi’s tomb. Later, he moved to Tabriz where he wrote to the Akbarian scholar ‘Abd alRahman Jami and subsequently moved to Herat and stayed there as his disciple until Jami’s death in 898/1492.24 While in Herat, Jami initiated him into the Naqshbandiyya taught al-Makki about half of his commentary on the Fusus 25 Al-Makki’s style resembles that of Jami in al-Durra al-fakhira and in his commentary on Fusus al-hikam 26 He always tries to mention the opinions of the theologians, the philosophers, and the Sufis. He cites Jami frequently and refers to him as his shaykh 27 Upon leaving Herat, he travelled to Sind and wandered in India before returning to Mecca where he intended to write a commentary on Fusus al-hikam. His travels by this point had lasted twenty years.28 In Mecca he started his project, writing the introduction to the commentary, but the situation seems to have become difficult for him, so he took his family and moved to Cairo, where he wrote his work ‘Ayn al-hayat.
The above is all the information that al-Makki provides about his life, but we can surmise that he returned to Mecca after moving to Cairo the second time, since al-Barzanji states explicitly that when Sultan Selim entered Cairo, al-Makki traveled from Mecca to meet him. There are, furthermore, clues to the chronology of his writings in his works ‘Ayn al-hayat and al-Janib al-gharbi. In the first, he says that he did not write the work until he had studied the writings of Ibn ‘Arabi for more than twenty years (aside from his study of theology and philosophy).29 In contrast, in al-Janib al-gharbi, he says that he wrote the work after studying Ibn ‘Arabi for more than thirty years.30 In another context he specifies thirty-seven years.31 Thus, we can conclude that he wrote al-Janib al-gharbi ten or more years after he wrote ‘Ayn al-hayat. As it has been noted, al-Janib al-gharbi was written between 922/1516 and 924/1518, so ‘Ayn al-hayat must have been written between 912/1507 and 914/1509 in Cairo.32 These clues can help us estimate the date of
24
Al-Makki, ‘Ayn al-hayat Op. Cit., pp. 15-16.
25 Ibidem, p. 11.
26 According to Chittick, Jami represents a culmination of the school of Ibn ‘Arabi in the history of Sufism because Jami presents Ibn ‘Arabi’s teaching in a direct, beautiful, and simple way. William Chittick (1979). “The Perfect Man in the Prototype of the Self in the Sufism of Jami.” Studia Islamica, 49, pp. 135-157, p. 139-140.
27
28
29
30
Al-Barzanji, al-Jadhib al-ghaybi. Op. Cit., p. 159.
Al-Makki, ‘Ayn al-hayat, Op. Cit., p. 11.
Al-Makki, ‘Ayn al-hayat, Op. Cit., p. 148.
Al-Barzanji, al-Jadhib al-ghaybi. Op. Cit., p. 163.
31 Ibidem, p. 591.
32 The Topkapi 1549 is dated 915 AH.
his original departure from Mecca: he probably left Mecca around 890/1485 and returned there around 910/1504-5.
As for al-Makki’s book, since it was translated into Arabic by al-Barzanji, its contents and structure will be discussed below after introducing al-Barzanji.
Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad b. Rasul al-Barzanji al-Husayni al-Musawi came from the village of Barzanja, a town in Kurdistan near the present-day city of Sulaymaniyya.33 The al-Barzanji family claims descent from the Prophet through the Imam Musa al-Kazim.34 He was born in 1044/1630, and received his early education from his father and other scholars of Shahrazur including Mulla Muhammad Sharif al-Kurani. He then traveled to Hamadan, Baghdad, Damascus, Constantine, and Egypt, where he learned from renowned scholars. He arrived in Medina around 1068/1657-8 and setteled there permenently. AlBarzanji was a Shafi‘i scholar and in Medina he began to teach in the grand mosque, and continued to pursue his studies with some scholars, mainly Ibrahim al-Kurani and Safi alDin al-Qushashi. Al-Barzanji died in Muharram 1103/1691, and was buried in the famous cemetery of al-Baqi‘ in Medina.35
Al-Barzanji composed around eighty works; less than ten of them have been published while the rest are still in manuscript form. The most famous text of al-Barzanji’s works is al-Isha‘a fi ashrat al-sa‘a, which has been published several times, and among his other works are al-Sana wa-l-sunut fima yata‘allaq bi-l-qunut, al-Safi ‘an al-kadar fima ja’a ‘an sayyid al-bashar fi al-qada’ wa-l-qadar, al-Qawl al-mukhtar fi hadith: “tahajjat al-janna wal-nar”, al-Nawafid li-l-rawafid/mukhtasar al-Nawaqid ‘ala al-rawafid li-Mirza Makhdum,36 and recently al-Jadhib al-ghaybi ila al-Janib al-gharbi
Al-Barzanji states at the beginning of this work that he translated al-Janib al-gharbi from Persian to Arabic at the request of some friends and students. At the end of the work,
33 A sketch of the family’s history, based on its own oral and written traditions is given in: Edmonds, C.J. (1957). Kurds, Turks and Arabs: Politics, Travel and Research in North-Eastern Iraq. London: Oxford University Press; and in Martin Van Bruinessen. “Kurdish ‘Ulama and their Indonesian Disciples.” digital copy from the author’s webpage at Utrecht University. He mentions that this article is a revised version of “The Impact of Kurdish ‘Ulama on Indonesian Islam.” Les annales de l’autre Islam 5, 1998, 83-106.
34 Al-Hamawi in Fawa’id al-Irtihal gives his full name until ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. See Mustafa al-Hamawi (2011). Fawa’id al-irtihal wa-nata’ij al-safar fi akhbar al-qarn al-hadi ‘ashar, ed. ‘Abd Allah al-Kundari. Beirut: Dar al-Nawadir, 2011. Vol. 1, p. 476.
35 ‘Abd al-Rahman Al-Ansari (1970). Tuhfat al-Muhibbin wa-l-ashab fi ma‘rifat ma li-l-madaniyyin min ansab. Ed. Muhammad al-‘Arusi al-Matawi. Tunisia: al-Maktaba al-‘Atiqa. P. 87.
36 For a complete list of al-Barzanji’s works see the introduction of al-Barzanji’s al-Jadhib al-ghaybi, Op. Cit., p. 39.
Al-JAdhib Al-ghAybi il A Al-JAnib Al-ghArbi fi hAll Mushkil At ibn ‘ArAbi
he specifies that he completed the translation and the comments in Medina on Saturday, the 22nd of Shawwal, in the year 1096/1685.37 As mentioned above, the basis for this work is al-Makki’s al-Janib al-gharbi, written in Persian at the request of Sultan Selim I and completed in 924/1518. Al-Makki’s work is divided into two parts and a conclusion. The first part contains the objections and was divided into two sections: a section concerning the issue of oneness of being (wahdat al-wujud), and another section about other matters. The second part contains the responses to these objections, and this is followed by a conclusion that lists Ibn ‘Arabi’s virtues (fada’il), and his Sufi chains (salasil).
Al-Barzanji provided his Arabic translation with various additional explanations and comments. He called this work al-Jadhib al-ghaybi ila al-Janib al-gharbi fi hall mushkilat Ibn ‘Arabi, “The Unseen Attraction to the Western Approach in Solving the Problems of Ibn ‘Arabi”. He proceeded by placing the conclusion first in order to seek blessing and so that the readers would know Ibn ‘Arabi’s value at the beginning of the book. Then he expanded Ibn ‘Arabi’s biography, adding the praises that scholars had expressed for him. Al-Barzanji also placed the objections and the answers into one section, so that every objection may be found with its answer. Furthermore, he corrected al-Makki’s quotations and completed them with an expansion of the commentary. As a conclusion to the book, he added various hadiths to bless his endeavour.
The Arabic version in its new critical edition is almost 700 pages, and since it represents most of the criticisms against Ibn Arabi until the end of the eleventh/seventeenth century, the chapter headings will be presented from the book in its Arabic translation:
[A] - Introduction: Ibn ‘Arabi’s life, works, his teachers, his admirers, and his miracles (karamat). This entire section was added by al-Barzanji as a preface to his translation of al-Makki’s work, which may be broken down as follows:
Chapter I: concerning the virtues of Ibn ‘Arabi (manaqib Ibn ‘Arabi).
Chapter II: concerning the spiritual chains (salasil) of Ibn ‘Arabi and his wearing of the Sufi cloak (khirqa)
Chapter III: a presentation of the doctrine of Ibn ‘Arabi in abbreviated form.
[B] - Objections and answers to objections:
[1] - With regard to objections other than those relating to the oneness of being (fima yata‘allaqu bi-ghayr wahdat al-wujud). This section contains eight objections.
[2] - With regard to objections relating to oneness of being (ma yata‘allaqu bi-wahdat al-wujud). This section contains sixteen objections.
[C] - Conclusion.
The main points raised in these objections are:
[1] Objections relating to various issues in Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought and writings not concerning the oneness of being.
37 Al-Barzanji, al-Jadhib al-ghaybi. Op. Cit., p. 592.
Concerned with Ibn ‘Arabi’s statement “Man is to God (al-Haqq) what the pupil is to the eye”.38
Related to the eternity of the world; Ibn ‘Arabi said about human beings: “He is Man, the transient, so he is a human being both in-time and before-time, an eternal and aftertime organism”.39
About Ibn ‘Arabi’s statement “whatever quality we ascribe to Him, we are ourselves that quality”.40
Deals with the concept of sainthood (wilaya); he discusses topics such as the types of sainthood, the seal of sainthood, the seal of Prophethood, and the vision of the gold and silver bricks.
About the vision of Ibrahim slaughtering his son and Ibn ‘Arabi’s position that it derived from the “world of imagination”.41
Ibn ‘Arabi mentions in more than one place that, while the unbelievers will eternally remain in the hellfire, after a period of time it becomes natural and familiar to them, because it is their home, and therefore distress becomes a pleasure and a delight.
Discusses Ibn ‘Arabi’s position on the faith of Pharaoh.
Concerns Ibn ‘Arabi teaching on the superiority of angels or humans.
[2] Chapter two discusses the concept of oneness of being and the objections and responses to this issue. Before listing the objections, he first defines the conception of wahdat al-wujud that he considers to be beyond legality or, as he calls it, al-wujudiyya al-mulhida. Then he defines the monotheistic concept of oneness of being (al-wujudiyya al-muwahhida).
To Ibn ‘Arabi’s statement at the beginning of the Futuhat: “glory to the One who created things and He is their essence”.
That Ibn ‘Arabi says in the Bezel of Noah in the Fusus: “the doctrine of transcendence imposes a restriction and a limitation, for he who asserts that God is transcendent is either a fool or a rogue”.42
That he says in the Bezel of Idris: “al-Kharraz, who is an aspect of the Reality and one of His tongues by which He expresses Himself, said ‘God cannot be known except as uniting the opposites.’ It is none other than He who bears the name Abu Sa‘id al-Kharraz and all the other names given to relative things”.43
That he says in the Bezel of Noah: “Had Noah combined the two aspects in summoning his people, they would have responded to his call […]. He states that his people turned a
38 Ibn ‘Arabi, Fusus al-hikam, ed. Abu al-‘Ila ‘Afifi. Cairo: Dar Ihya’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1946, p. 50.
39 Ibidem, p. 50.
40 Idem, p. 54.
41 Idem, p. 85.
42 Idem, p. 68.
43 Idem, p. 77.
deaf ear to his summons only because they knew the proper way for them to respond to his summons”.44
That he says in the Bezel of Noah also: “‘they hatched a great conspiracy,’ meaning that summoning to God is a deception played on one summoned, since God is no more nonexistent in the first mode than in the second. ‘I call to God’ which is the deception itself, ‘with clear vision’ indicating that the whole belongs to Him”.45
That he says in the same Bezel: “‘because of their transgressions,’ going beyond themselves so that they drowned in the seas of the knowledge of God, which is what is meant by perplexity. ‘And they were cast into the fire,’ which means the same as drowning according to the heirs. ‘When the seas swell,’ where the same verbal root is used to denote the heating of an oven. ‘Nor will they find any helpers apart from God,’ since their helpers are nothing other than God and they are annihilated in Him forever”.46
That he says in the Bezel of Abraham: “He praises me and I praise Him, He worships me and I worship Him”.47
That he says in the Bezel of Hud that our existence feeds Him, and that He is our food.48
That he says in the same Bezel: “beware lest you restrict yourself to a particular tenet [concerning the Reality] and so deny any other tenet [equally reflecting Him], for you would forfeit much good, indeed you would forfeit the true knowledge of what is [the Reality]”.49
That he says in the Bezel of Shu‘ayb: “The god of one believer has no validity in respect to the god of one who believes something else. The supporter of a particular belief defends what he believes and champions it, while that which he believes in does not support him. It is because of this that he has no effect on his opponent’s belief”.50
That he says in the same Bezel: “the whole Cosmos is a sum of accidents, so that it is transformed in every length of time”.51
That he says the sainthood of the Prophet is superior to his Prophethood. “His station [the Prophet] as a knower is more complete and perfect than that as an apostle or lawgiver”.52
That he says in the Bezel of Jesus: “This matter has led certain people to speak of incarnation and to say that, in reviving from death, he is God. Therefore, they are called unbelievers, being a form of concealment, since they conceal God. Who in reality revives the dead, in the human form Jesus […] the real error and unbelief in the full sense of the
44 Idem, p. 70.
45 Idem, p. 72.
46 Idem, p. 73.
47 Idem, p. 83.
48 Idem, p. 111.
49 Idem, p. 113.
50 Idem, p. 122.
51 Idem, p. 125.
52 Idem, p. 135.
word is not in their saying ‘He is God’ nor ‘the son of Mary,’ but in their having turned aside from God by including in the matter of reviving the dead, in favor of a mere mortal form in their saying ‘the son of Mary,’ albeit that he is the son of Mary”.53
That he says in the Bezel of Aaron: “The perfect Gnostic is one who regards every object of worship as a manifestation of God in which He is worshiped”.54
That he says in the Bezel of Moses: “when Moses made the answer [to] Pharaoh that God is the essence of the world, Pharaoh addressed him by this language, although the people present were not aware of that. So, Pharaoh says ‘if you have a god other than me, I will surely impress you.’ In other words, ‘I will surely cover you’”.55
That he says in the same Bezel: “it was only because Pharaoh was in a position of power, the man of the moment and vice-regent by the sword, even though he had abused all legal norms, that he said ‘I am your highest Lord’ that is to say ‘even if all are Lords in a certain sense, I am higher by virtue of the rule I have been granted, outwardly, over you’”.56
Within each chapter there are various related topics which, in general, cover not only the controversial Akbarian topics, but most of the topics discussed in Islamic theology, Sufism, and philosophy. Thus, al-Barzanji’s work is not merely a translation; al-Barzanji constantly expands the work with commentary, explanation, and even criticism in some places. He regularly includes Ibn ‘Arabi’s original texts in longer citations to provide context; he supports al-Makki’s arguments with more evidence from Ibn ‘Arabi’s writings or those of his followers. The Arabic text, as a result, became about three times longer than the original text in Persian. Generally, one can say that al-Barzanji uses a broad spectrum of theological, jurisprudential, philosophical, and Sufi texts to support his arguments and to interpret Ibn ‘Arabi’s ideas, mainly from an Ash‘ari perspective. This book thus forms an important reference, not only for the study of Akbarian thought, but of Islamic intellectual development in the post-classical Islamic period more broadly and presents a clear image of the sophisticated theological and philosophical ideas that were being discussed in the Hijaz during the seventeenth century.
Akbarian thought in the Hijaz can be considered an extension of al-Fusus’s commentators’ work from al-Qunawi until Jami, who was a teacher of al-Shaykh al-Makki and thus a direct connection between Akbarian thought in Anatolia and Central Asia and that in the Hijaz. However, Akbarian thought in the Hijaz had features distinct from those of other Akbarian traditions. El-Rouayheb describes Akbarian thought before the seventeenth century as follows: “in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Sufi scholars from North Africa, Egypt, and geographic Syria tended to esteem Ibn ‘Arabi as a saint but were
53 Idem, p. 141.
54 Idem, p. 194.
55 Idem, p. 209. The argument in this bezel is that Pharaoh says: if God is the essence of the world and I am part of the world, then my saying: ‘I am your highest Lord” is valid.
56 Idem, p. 211.
still largely resistant to adopting wholesale the outlook of his monist commentators and interpreters”.57 While scholars and even Sufi advocates of Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought tried to avoid controversial topics such as the faith of Pharaoh and the end of unbelievers’ torment in the Hereafter, based their research on those of Ibn Arabi’s texts less controversial than Fusus al-hikam, or even claimed that some ideas had been interpolated into his works,58 Akbarian scholars in the Hijaz did not ignore any controversial idea. In fact, the two most controversial ideas, i.e., the faith of Pharaoh and the end of unbelievers’ torment, occupy the longest discussions in al-Barzanji’s book, being discussed over almost one hundred pages each in the Arabic edited text.59 The book’s table of contents, in its Persian and Arabic editions, clearly shows the prominent position of al-Fusus in discussing Ibn ‘Arabi’s ideas. And for the claim of interpolation in Ibn ‘Arabi’s text, al-Barzani named al-Sha‘rani as the originator of this claim and said that it is possible that al-Sha‘rani was not able to explain Ibn ‘Arabi’s idea in a way that accorded with the shari‘a and thus he, al-Sha‘rani, said it had been interpolated in order to protect the reputation of al-Shaykh al-Akbar. Al-Barzanji added that he himself would explain that Ibn ‘Arabi’s idea about these topics is in full accord with the Quran, hadith, and shari‘a. 60
This is a quick presentation of the contribution of two scholars from the Hijaz to the long dispute about Ibn ‘Arabi and his thought, which reveals one small aspect of the Akbarian presence in the Hijaz. Akbarian thought in the seventeenth-century Hijaz, as I have argued elsewhere,61 was not only a Sufi or intellectual current; rather, Akbarian thought spread among most of the Hijazi scholars of the region and arrived at the level of the dominating intellectual aspect of all religious life in the Hijaz, which became one of the most active centers of Ibn ‘Arabi studies in that century.
It may seem strange in our contemporary moment to link Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 638/1240) with the Hijaz, but his thought had a continuous presence in the Hijaz until the beginning of the twentieth century. This paper presents two Hijazi Akbarian scholars who played important roles in defending and interpreting Ibn ‘Arabi’s ideas. Al-Shaykh al-Makki (d. 926/151920) wrote a comprehensive work in defence of Ibn ‘Arabi entitled al-Janib al-gharbi fi hall mushkilat Ibn ‘Arabi Muhammad b. Rasul al-Barzanji al-Madani (d. 1103/1691) translated this text from Persian to Arabic and extended it into a comprehensive study
57 El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century, Op. Cit., p. 306.
58 Ibidem, p. 239.
59 For the discussion of the topics of Pharoah’s faith and the torment in the Hereafter in al-Jadhib al-ghaybi see respectively pp. 365-419 and pp. 276-365.
60 Al-Barzanji, al-Jadhib al-ghaybi. Op. Cit., p. 239.
61 Naser Dumairieh (2021). Intellectual Life in the Hijaz before Wahhabism: Ibrahim al-Kurani’s (d. 1101/1690) Theology of Sufism. Leiden: Brill.
of the theological, philosophical, legal, and Sufi aspects of Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought. This text constitutes a systematic defense of Akbarian thought, answering point by point all the criticisms leveled against Ibn ‘Arabi until the eleventh/seventeenth century, and sheds some light on the contribution of the Hijaz to defending Ibn ‘Arabi and his thought.
Ibn ‘Arabi, al-Shaykh al-Makki, al-Barzanji, al-Jadhib al-ghaybi, the Hijaz