The medieval Muslim interpretation of a Roman municipium: The vision of Mārida (Mérida) in the work of al-Idrīsī and al-Ḥimyarī

Abstract

The article analyzes the image of the Roman past of Hispanic cities, as reflected in works created after the Moslem conquest of the 8th century. Writers who wrote in Arabic had no reliable information about Roman architectural inheritance and tried to compensate for this fact by using other sources, such as prejudices, myths, legends and fantasies. Works of the descriptive genre (al-masãlik wa-l-mamãlik) demonstrate this tendency most clearly. The books written by the Arab Hispanic author al-Idrīsī (12th century) and the Persian writer al-Ḥimyarī (15th century) belong to this genre. Al-Ḥimyarī had never been to Spain (al-Andalus) but was very interested in this country and left a very detailed description of it. Both writers reflected the image of Merida in their works. This city had great importance in Roman and Visigothic times. Strange interpretations of the functions of some Roman buildings in Merida (theater, amphitheater, aqueduct, forum, triumphal arches and others) found in the work of al-Ḥimyarī were frequently taken from al-Idrīsī. The fantastic interpretation of the origin of the name of Merida (“residence of an honorable or noble man”: mashkīn ashsharīf) suggested by al-Ḥimyarī had the same source. At the same time, much better grounded information included in the work of alRāzī (written in the 10th century) was disregarded. The main cause of these incorrect interpretations was a lack of knowledge of Roman municipal life in the case of Arabic writers.