Early Islamic Spain: The History of Ibn al-Qutiyah (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East)

193 Pages·2009·1.16 MB·English

by  David James

Early Islamic Spain
This book is the first published English-language translation of the signi-
ficant History of Islamic Spain by Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya (d. Cordova 367 / 977).
˙
Including extensive notes and comments, a genealogical table and relevant
maps, the text is preceded by a study of the author and his work, and is
the only serious examination of the unique manuscript since Pascual de
Gayangos’ edition in 1868.
Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya’s work is one of the significant and earliest histories of
˙
Muslim Spain and an important source for scholars. Although like most
Muslims of al-Andalus in this period, Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya was of European origin,
˙
he was a loyal servant of the Iberian Umayyads, and taught Arabic,
traditions (hadı¯th) and history in the Great Mosque of Cordova. Written at
˙
the height of the Umayyad Caliphate of Muslim Spain and Portugal (al-
Andalus), the History describes the first 250 years of Muslim rule in the
peninsula. The text, first fully translated into Spanish in 1926, deals with all
aspects of life, and includes accounts of Christians, Jews and Muslim con-
verts. Aside from the intrigues of the ruling classes, it also speaks of the lives
of lesser inhabitants: servants, minor officials, poets, judges, concubines and
physicians.
This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of the history
of Spain and Portugal, Islamic history, and Mediaeval European history.
David James was Special Lecturer in Arabic Studies at University College
Dublin, where he also taught a course on Islamic Spain. He is the author of
Manuscripts of the Holy Qur(cid:1)a¯n from the Mamlu¯k Era and has lived and
worked in Andalucia for the last ten years.
Culture and Civilization in the Middle East
General Editor: Ian Richard Netton
Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter
This series studies the Middle East through the twin foci of its diverse cul-
tures and civilisations. Comprising original monographs as well as scholarly
surveys, it covers topics in the fields of Middle Eastern literature, archaeology,
law, history, philosophy, science, folklore, art, architecture and language.
While there is a plurality of views, the series presents serious scholarship in a
lucid and stimulating fashion.
Previously published by Curzon The Formation of Hanbalism
Piety into power
The Origins of Islamic Law
Nimrod Hurvitz
The Qur(cid:1)an, the Muwatta(cid:1) and
Madinan Amal Arabic Literature
Yasin Dutton An overview
Pierre Cachia
A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo
The history of Cambridge University’s Structure and Meaning in Medieval
Genizah Collection Arabic and Persian Lyric Poetry
Stefan Reif Orient pearls
The Formative Period of Twelver Shi(cid:1)ism Julie Scott Meisami
Hadith as discourse between Qum and
Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily
Baghdad
Arabic-Speakers and the end of Islam
Andrew J. Newman
Alexander Metcalfe
Qur(cid:1)an Translation
Modern Arab Historiography
Discourse, texture and exegesis
Historical discourse and the
Hussein Abdul-Raof
nation-state
Christians in Al-Andalus 711–1000 Youssef Choueiri
Ann Rosemary Christys
The Philosophical Poetics of Alfarabi,
Folklore and Folklife in the United Arab Avicenna and Averroes
Emirates The Aristotelian reception
Sayyid Hamid Hurriez Salim Kemal
Published by Routledge Space and Muslim Urban Life
At the limits of the Labyrinth of Fez
The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun
Simon O’Meara
Zaid Ahmad
Islam Science
The Hanbali School of Law and Ibn
The intellectual career of Nizam al-Din
Taymiyyah
al-Nizaburi
Conflict or conciliation
Robert G. Morrison
Abdul Hakim I Al-Matroudi
Ibn (cid:2)Arabî – Time and Cosmology
Arabic Rhetoric
Mohamed Haj Yousef
A pragmatic analysis
Hussein Abdul-Raof The Status of Women in Islamic Law and
Society
Arab Representations of the Occident
East-West encounters in Arabic fiction Annotated translation of al-T.a¯hir al-
Hadda¯d’s Imra(cid:1)tuna¯ fi (cid:2)l-sharı¯ca wa
Rasheed El-Enany (cid:1)l˙-mujtamac, with an introduction
God and Humans in Islamic Thought Ronak Husni and Daniel L. Newman
Abd al-Jabba¯r, Ibn Sı¯na¯ and al-Ghaza¯lı¯
Islam and the Baha(cid:1)i Faith
Maha Elkaisy-Friemuth
A comparative study of Muhammad
Original Islam (cid:2)Abduh and (cid:2)Abdul-Baha (cid:2)Abbas
Malik and the madhhab of Madina Oliver Scharbrodt
Yasin Dutton
Comte de Gobineau and Orientalism
Al-Ghazali and the Qur(cid:1)an Selected eastern writings
One book, many meanings Translated by Daniel O’Donoghue
Martin Whittingham Edited by Geoffrey Nash
Birth of The Prophet Muhammad Early Islamic Spain
Devotional piety in Sunni Islam The History of Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya
˙
Marion Holmes Katz David James

Early Islamic Spain
The History of Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya
˙
A study of the unique Arabic manuscript in the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France, Paris, with a translation, notes and
comments
David James
First published 2009 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
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© 2009 David James
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya, Muhammad ibn (cid:2)Umar, d. 977
[Tarikh ift˙itah al-A˙ndalus. English]
Early Islamic Spain : the history of Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya /
David James [editor] ˙
p. cm.—(Culture and civilisation in the Middle East ; 15)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Spain—History—711–1516. 2. Muslims—Spain—History.
I. James, David Lewis. II. Title.
DP101.I2513 2009
946′.02—dc22
2008033992
ISBN 0-203-88267-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 13: 978–0–415–47552–5 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–203–88267–2 (ebk)
ISBN 10: 0–415–47552–X (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0–203–88267–9 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of maps and illustrations xiii
Explanatory note xvii
Introduction: The History of the History 1
Translation: The History of Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya (d. 367/977) 47
˙
1 T.a¯riq ibn Zı¯ya¯d invades al-Andalus 49
2 Al-Andalus under the Governors of the
Damascus Caliphate (92–136/711–756) 59
3 The Arrival of (cid:2)Abd al-Rahma¯n ibn
Mu(cid:2)a¯wı¯ya and his Reign as˙ Emir (138–172/756–788) 67
4 The Reign of the Emir Hisha¯m (172–180/788–796) 82
5 The Reign of the Emir al-Hakam
˙
(180–206/796–822) 86
6 The Reign of the Emir (cid:2)Abd al-Rahma¯n II
˙
(796–238/822–852) 97
7 The Reign of the Emir Muhammad
˙
(238–273/852–886) 109
8 The Reign of the Emir al-Mundhir
(273–275/886–888) 130
viii Early Islamic Spain
9 The Reign of the Emir (cid:2)Abdalla¯h
(275–300/888–912) 133
10 The Reign of the Emir/Caliph (cid:2)Abdal-Rahma¯n III
˙
(300–350/912–961) 140
Appendices 143
Appendixi: The location of the symbol ha¯(cid:1) in the
text of the History 143
Appendixii: The Banu¯ (cid:1)l-Qu¯tı¯ya, circa. 107–429/725–1037
˙
and other descendants of Sa¯ra al-Qu¯tı¯ya 145
Appendixiii: The fira¯sh, carpet-of-office or ˙
throne-of-office (?) for officials of the
Umayyad Emirate 147
Appendixiv: Al-Mushaf alladhı¯ yunsab ila¯
(cid:2)Uthma˙¯˙n ibn (cid:2)Affa¯n, the copy of the Qur(cid:1)a¯n
of (cid:2)Uthma¯n ibn (cid:2)Affa¯n in the Great Mosque
of Cordova 148
Appendixv: The location of Sakhrat Jawdha¯rish,
˙
west of Bobastro 150
Appendixvi: The identity of Abu¯(cid:1)l-Fadl ibn
˙
Muh(ammad) ... al-Wazza¯n 151
˙
Bibliography 154
Index 165
Acknowledgments
My first encounter with the History of Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya was as a young teacher
˙
in Omdurman in the mid-1960s when I bought the 1957 Beirut version of
the text edited by (cid:2)Abdalla¯h Anı¯s al-T.abba¯(cid:2) in a Khartoum bookshop.
Although I did not realise at the time, it was the beginning of a life-long
interest in Islamic Spain. When I became Special Lecturer in Arabic Studies
at University College, Dublin, some years later, the Department of Mediaeval
History asked me if I would be interested in offering a course on Islamic
Spain; a course that I later adapted for the students of Arabic in the Depart-
ment of Semitic Languages, later re-named Near Eastern Studies. I then read
the History of Ibn al-Qu¯tı¯ya with the final year students as a set book.
˙
As there was no English translation of the text at the time, the idea of
producing one was always in my mind. But I did not get down to the task
until several years ago, after going to live in Ronda in 1997 and being inspired
by living in a town which for centuries had been part of al-Andalus.
At the time, I was not aware of J.M. Nichols’s unpublished 1975 English
translation of the text. Nichols’s translation was a doctoral thesis for the
University of North Carolina and was based on al-T.abba¯(cid:2)’s 1957 edition,
and that of Gayangos/Ribera, 1868/1926. Although accessible it was never
formally published. It is a perfectly good piece of work, with an excellent
introduction, and I have referred to it on numerous occasions in the pre-
paration of my own version. Since the edition of al-T.abba¯(cid:2) there has been
another one, by Ibra¯hı¯m al-Abya¯rı¯, published in Cairo and Beirut in 1982,
which gives some new suggestions for the readings of certain parts of the text.
But I have used all the printed editions from that of Cherbonneau, 1853–1856
onwards, and compared them with the unique manuscript in the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France, Paris.
After the 1868 edition of the entire text published in Madrid by Gayangos,
later editors seemed to have referred only to that, or the copy made by the
Spanish nineteenth-century scholar, Eduardo Saavedra, now in the Biblioteca
Nacional, Madrid, rather than the original manuscript in Paris. All the
twentieth-century editions contain certain errors due to mis-readings of
the Paris text, and some parts of that text have been accidentally omitted.
Furthermore, none of the editors mentions the unusual way in which the text