Abstract
Este artículo se centra en el análisis del género literario de las ṭabaqāt como parte de un proyecto que pretende analizar por qué, cómo y cuándo las obras compuestas en el Occidente islámico (al-Andalus y el Magreb, entendido aquí como la región geográfica situada al oeste de Egipto) encontraron un espacio fuera del lugar donde fueron redactadas, creciendo su interés por ellas en otras regiones el mundo islámico. La difusión de obras de este género fuera del área geográfica para la cual habían sido escritas implica la existencia de un interés dentro el mundo académico que las componía. En este artículo analizaré qué diccionarios biográficos andalusíes fueron incluidos en uno de los repertorios bibliográficos más famosos del mundo islámico, Kašf al-ẓunūn, escrito por Kātib Çelebī (m. 1067/1657), con el fin de arrojar luz no solo al caso particular del Occidente islámico, sino también de forma más general a la discusión acerca de las dinámicas locales/globales de transferencia de conocimiento de la época pre-moderna en el mundo islámico.
Highlights
Kashf al-ẓunūn ‘an asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn[3] (“The Unconvering of Ideas: On the Titles of Books and the Names of Sciences” or “The Removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Sciences”) was, and still is, one of the most important bibliographical works originating in the Islamic world, part of a rich literary tradition documenting the books that were written and transmitted by Muslim authors in different periods and regions
‘Abd Allāh, better known as Ḥajjī Khalīfa or Kātib Çelebī (1017/-1609/10571657)[4] during at least half of his life,[5] it provides information about 15.000 Arabic, Turkish and Persian works of various disciplines.[6]. In his 1997 study of Kashf al-ẓunūn and Sullam al-wuṣūl ilā ṭabaqāt al-fuṣūl (“The Ladder leading to the Biographies of Great Men”), Eleazar Birnbaum states that this information was compiled by Kātib Çelebi from other sources, especially from historical works and biographical dictionaries, and by reading and examining directly different manuscripts and works that he could consult in the libraries of Istanbul and other towns, as he travelled frequently throughout the Ottoman Empire thanks to his position in the army
At the present stage it is difficult to assess if the number of Andalusi biographical dictionaries mentioned in Kashf al-ẓunūn is low or high compared to other regions of the Islamic world, as to my knowledge there are not similar studies undertaken for such other regions and with which a comparison could be carried out
Summary
Kashf al-ẓunūn ‘an asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn[3] (“The Unconvering of Ideas: On the Titles of Books and the Names of Sciences” or “The Removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Sciences”) was, and still is, one of the most important bibliographical works originating in the Islamic world, part of a rich literary tradition (fahāris, barāmij, etc.) documenting the books that were written and transmitted by Muslim authors in different periods and regions. In the case of these eight works, the chronology is more varied than in the other sample: four works were compiled in the Umayyad period; four belong to the Almoravid period (al-Ḥumaydī’s work was compiled in Baghdad from memory and personal notes, again as a way to establish his credentials as a scholar outside al-Andalus; he settled in Iraq and never returned to the Iberian Peninsula), and the last two was composed between the Almoravid and Almohad period Apart from those works just mentioned, there are biographical dictionaries which follow an alphabetical or chronological structure and deal with scholars in general. We can find the section devoted to manāqib in Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Lexicon bibliographicum, vol V, 141-157, and in it not a single work from the Maghreb or al-Andalus is mentioned. The last work of this type is al-Tabyīn ‘an manāqib man ‘urifa bi-Qurṭuba min al-tābi‘īn wa-l-ulamā’ al-ṣāliḥīn,[53] written by Ibn al-Ṭaylasān (d. 642/1244), a work on the Successors to the Prophet and the pious and devout Andalusis who lived in Cordoba
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