Abstract
ABSTRACTIn the early 970s, groups of Vikings (al-Majūs in Arabic) appeared off the western coast of al-Andalus. Al-Ḥakam II (r. 961–976) sent a fleet and his army against them. The detail of his response survives in citations from earlier historians in the Muqtabas of Ibn Ḥayyān (987/8–1076). The account of this period of Viking activity that Ibn Ḥayyān preserved is more detailed than descriptions of earlier campaigns in the Arabic chronicles. It is also more remote from the pirates themselves, since Ibn Ḥayyān, or his sources, narrated events as seen from the twin centres of Umayyad power: Córdoba, and the palace of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ.11With particular thanks to al-Masāq's anonymous readers, whose detailed comments helped me to untangle an earlier version of this article.
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