From Asia to Africa: the Tuḥfat al-Albāb by Abū Ḥāmid al-Gharnāṭī (473/1080–565/1169) as a source for the chronology and content of the Sīrat ՙAntar b. Shaddād

Abstract

The Sīrat YAntar conceals within its narrative identifiable literary sources.This is especially so in those sections which describe the adventures of the ՙAbsī hero in Byzantium, Italy, al-Andalus, ՙUmān, Egypt and Ethiopia. Its I use of such sources is without parallel in the sister siyar. Though the fact was not ignored by Bernhard Heller or by Rudi Paret, it is insufficiently appreciated elsewhere, especially in the Arab world itself. So pervasive is the literary treatment as it draws upon Arabic geographical works, and the exploring of ‘wonder books’ (kutub al-ՙajā՚ib) for source material so apparent, that it is doubtful, nay unacceptable, that this particular Sīra (others may bide our question) can be accurately described as Arabic oral and formulaic ‘coffeehouse entertainment’, or as being outside the corpus of classical Arabic literature. That part of the giant work, categorized by Maḥmūd Dhihnī as al-Marḥala al-malḥamiyya, which describes these adventures, is unquestionably post-twelfth century in date, marked as it is by Crusading proper names and by those of Mamlūk offices. That the text is not earlier than the late thirteenth century will here be shown.