Abstract
“Two Passages in Ibn al-Khatib’s Account of the Kings of Christian Iberia,”
Highlights
Writing about ChristiansThis article offers a reading of a fourteenth century account of the Christian kings of Iberia as found at the end of Kitàb a 'mal aUa 'lam, a history written in the late 8*/14* century by the famed Granadan polymath and sometime vizier Ibn al-Khatïb (d.776/1374)
The relevant passage on the Christian kings can be found on pages 322-338
Münzel, drawing on the earlier work of Ron Barkai and Bernard Lewis, notes in the historiographical writing under consideration a considerable lack of interest on the part of the Muslims regarding their Christian neighbors. This lack of interest continued through the eleventh century and the work of Ibn Hayyán. ^ Christian history in this period is only taken into account by Muslim historiography when Christians came to interact with Muslims, principally in the realm of military exploits. In this fashion Münzel sees the stories describing Pelayo's early resistance movement against the Muslims as serving to explain the continued existence and later spread of Christian sovereignty in north-west Iberia, as well as setting the stage for later resistance movements against the central Arab Muslim court. ^ In Ibn Hayyán's work - which deals with the fourth/tenth century - she notes that the Christians in the north were predominantly seen as vassals of the Muslims: they were sometimes rebellious, but dangerous only insofar as they aided rebels within the realm of Islam
Summary
This article offers a reading of a fourteenth century account of the Christian kings of Iberia as found at the end of Kitàb a 'mal aUa 'lam, a history written in the late 8*/14* century by the famed Granadan polymath and sometime vizier Ibn al-Khatïb (d.776/1374). Ann Christys in her Christians in al-Andalus has summarized previous work on how the history of Orosius came to be translated into Arabic, stressing that this process did not necessarily happen at the request of the Muslim ruler al-Hakam She does not cite the recent edition of Hurushiyush, in which its editor, Mayte Pénelas, presents new information regarding the book's redaction and authorship. For the Christian-Arabic material, including a detailed discussion of Ibn al-Qùtiyya, see Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, 158-186 For those interested in Muslim use of Christian historical material it is insightful to compare the topic of Orosius with the history of the Franks found in Mas'udï's Muriij al-Dhahab, where Mas'ùdï claims that he is using the history of a Catalonian bishop as his source. Neither Ibn Khaldün's (808/1406) Kitâb al-lbar, al-Qalqashandî's (821/1418) Subh al-A 'sha or al-Maqqarï's (1041/1632) magnum opus, Nafh al-tib, refer to this part of Ibn al-Khatlb's work in any way
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