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Abū l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr Date of Birth: 1145 Place of Birth: Valencia Date of Death: 29 November 1217 Place of Death: Alexandria Biography Ibn Jubayr was born in Valencia to a father who was a civil servant in the town, and into a family that had come to al-Andalus in 740, only a few years after the Islamic conquest. He gained an education in religious studies and adab, before himself becoming a civil servant in the court of Granada. It was here that his travels began: after he was urged to drink wine by the governor, he was recompensed for it by…

Abū l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī, was born in Játiva (Arab., Shāṭiba), in Valencia, in 540/1145 (or perhaps the previous year), and died in Alexandria in 614/1217. Famous for his poems and, above all, for his travelogue (riḥla), he is representative of those Andalusian scholars of his era who were deeply rooted in their Arab identity but rallied whole-heartedly to the Berber Almohad cause. Ibn Jubayr belonged to an Arab family of the tribe of Kināna, whose ancestor, ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī, must have settled in al-Andalus with the…

Ibn Baṭṭūṭa Shams al-Dīn Abī ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Lawātī al-Ṭanjī (703–770 or 779/1304–1368 or 1377) was the author of the most famous mediaeval travel account ( riḥla) in Arabic, entitled Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār fī gharāʾib al-amṣār wa-ʿajāʾib al-asfār (“A gift for the curious, concerning the wonders of cities and marvels of the journeys thereto”). His name indicates Arabised Berber stock. He was born on 17 Rajab 703/25 February 1304 in Tangier and died in his native Morocco. He was a younger contemporary of the equally fa…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲ubayr al-Kinānī , Andalusian traveller and writer, born at Valencia 540/1145, into a family which had settled in Spain in 123/740. He studied at Játiva, where his father was a civil servant, and received the traditional instruction of young men of his class, that is to say he learnt the rudiments of the religious sciences and of belles-lettres at the same time, but not without learning how to exercise his poetic skill. His talents won for him …

, Abū L-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲ubayr al-Kinānī, voyageur et lettré andalou, né à Valence en 540/1145, dans une famille venue se fixer en Espagne en 123/740. Il fit ses études à Játiva, où son père était fonctionnaire, et reçut l’instruction traditionnelle des jeunes gens de sa classe, c’est-à-dire qu’il s’initia à la fois aux ¶ sciences religieuses et aux belles-lettres, non sans acquérir le moyen d’exercer ses talents poétiques. Ses aptitudes lui valurent un poste de secrétaire auprès du gouverneur de Grenade, Abū Saʿīd ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAbd al-…

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad Ibn Juzayy (d. 757/1356) was an Andalusī court secretary and poet who is today famous because he edited Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s (d. 770/1368–9) account of his riḥla (travelogue). His father was Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. Juzayy (d. 741/1340), a famous Granadan jurist with whom the son studied the Islamic sciences. Later he turned to poetry and the profession of kātib (secretary), serving under the Naṣrid sultan Abū l-Ḥajjāj Yūsuf (r. 733–55/1333–54). After a dispute with the ruler, he went to the court of the Marīnid sultan Abū ʿInān Fāris (r. 7…

Aḥmad b. Faḍlān b. al-ʿAbbās b. Rāshid b. Ḥammād, known as Ibn Faḍlān, wrote a travelogue recounting his personal experiences as a representative of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295–320/908–32) during the embassy sent to the Turkic king of the Bulghār, also referred to as the king of the Ṣaqāliba, which left Baghdad on 12 Ṣafar 309/22 June 921. 1. Life Apart from what can be gleaned from his travelogue, nothing appears to survive on the life of Ibn Faḍlān that can clarify with certainty his origins, ethnicity, or education, or the dates of his birt…

Muḥammad Ibn Saʿd b. Manīʿ al-Zuhrī (d. 230/845) is known primarily for his multivolume Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr (“The large book of generations”), the earliest extant historical work of the genre often termed as a biographical dictionary, arranged according to generations (or “classes”), cataloguing the people who disseminated the teachings of the prophet Muḥammad. Ibn Saʿd was born in Basra around the year 168/784, and travelled to Baghdad, where he served as the secretary for the famous historian Muḥammad b…

ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz1 b. Jurayj, usually called by his grandfather's name, was a mawlā of the Banū Umayya, cf. IḤj., Tahdhīb, VI, p. 402. He is said to have died in 150/767 when he was in his seventies2. As his name (= George) al…

Ibn Isḥāq, Muḥammad (d. 150/767)  Abraha  Abyssinia  Cave  Children of Israel  Circumcision  Conquest  Consecration of Animals  Consultation  Emigrants and Helpers  Exegesis of the Qurʾān: Classical and Medieval  Expeditions and Battles  Good and Evil  Idolatry and Idolaters  Informants  Inimitability  Jews and Judaism  Korah  Literacy  Money  Muḥammad  Noah  Opposition to Muḥammad  Prophets and Prophethood  Qaynuqāʿ (Banū)  Religious Pluralism and the Qurʾān  Rhetoric and the Qurʾān  Satanic Verses  Smoke  Springs and Fountains  Sīra and the Qurʾān  Taxation  Tubbaʿ  …

‘Travels’ Ibn Jubayr Date: Sometime between 1185 and 1217 Original Language: Arabic Description Ibn Jubayr’s Riḥla details the ḥajj and subsequent travels he undertook from his Andalusian homeland in 1183-85. His route took him from Granada to Ceuta, and thence by ship to Sardinia and Alexandria. Once there, he travelled south through Egypt to the pilgrim port of Aydhab on the Red Sea, and from there crossed to Mecca, where he performed the obligatory devotions. He did not then go straight back to al-Andalus, but…

Ibn Ezra, Moses, Granada, Hijā' (Heb. neʿaṣa), Ibn Ezra, Moses, Lucena, Lucena, Malaga, Hebrew Poetry in the Medieval Islamic World, Hebrew Poetry in the Medieval Islamic World, Seville, Bible Exegesis, David (Abū ʾl-Ḥasan) ben al-Dayyan, Ibn Abī ʾl-ʿAysh, Moses (Abū Harūn), Ibn al-Rabῑb, Abraham (Abū Isḥāq) on Abū ’l-Rabī‘, Abū ʾl-Rabīʿ ben Barukh on Abun ben Sherara, Abun ben Sherara on Abun of Granada, Abun (of Granada) on Albalia, Isaac ben Barukh, Albalia, Isaac ben Barukh on al-Bargeloni, Bargeloni, Isaac ben Reuben, al- on Ben Maskarān, Isaac (Abū Ibrāhīm) ben Ma…

Bāniyās (also Baniyas, Banias, or Paneas) a town located in the north of the Golan Heights, takes its name from a sanctuary of the Greek god Pan. The nearest large town is Kiryat Shmona, fifteen kilometres to the west; Damascus lies sixty kilometres to the northeast. Bāniyās is also the name of a spring and a river that flows from here to the Jordan. The town is known from Hellenistic times. The son of Herod the Great (r. 37 to 4 B.C.E.), Philip (d. 33 or 34 C.E.), had the existing town embellished a…

In Band XV: Antropogeographie, Teil 2, Topographie - Geographische Lexika, Kosmographie - Kosmologie - Reiseberichte previous section TAMĪM Β. BAḤR Tamīm b. Baḥr al-Muṭṭauwiʿī ist der älteste uns bekannte arabische Reisende, von dem die Beschreibung einer Reise nach China auf dem Landweg erhalten ist. Zwei Fragmente aus seinem Bericht waren bereits durch Muʿğam al-buldān des Yāqūt bekannt. Durch den in den zwanziger Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts entdeckten Mesheder Kodex des K. al-Buldān des Ibn al-Faqīh sind weitere Teile aus dem Reisebericht bekannt geworden, welch…

Abū l-ʿAbbās ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf al-Qurashī al-Hāshimī (d. c. 68/687–8), known usually as Ibn ʿAbbās, was a paternal cousin and a Companion of the Prophet. 1. The life of Ibn ʿAbbās. The making of a Companion—between history and myth The sources tell us much about Ibn ʿAbbās, both historical and mythical. Given the importance attributed to his contribution to religious science, the period of his birth and childhood is surrounded by an aura of legend and fantasy, like those of the prophet Muḥammad h…

The Ghurābiyya were a sect of Shīʿī “extremists” (ghulāt) first mentioned by Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) who, he asserts, believed that “ʿAlī resembled the Prophet more even than the raven (al-ghurāb) resembles another raven, so Gabriel erred when he was sent to ʿAlī, because of the Prophet’s resemblance to him” (Ibn Qutayba, 623). ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1038) claims that the Ghurābiyya curse “the feathered-one (ṣāhib al-rīsh),” Gabriel, for his error (ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, 237). Abū l-Maʿālī alone contradicts Ibn Qutayba’s explanation of the sect…

Akhmīm, with almost 150,000 inhabitants one of the most populous cites in Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile, was an important religious, economic, and administrative centre from antiquity to the mediaeval period. In ancient times, this was the town of Panopolis. The Arabic name is based on the Coptic Shmim, or Shmin, and the name also referred to an administrative district. Akhmīm's pre-Islamic status as provincial capital continued into the Islamic period, when the pagarchy, or administrative unit (kūra), was sometimes combined with neighbouring districts. It remain…

ʿAydhāb, a port on the Sudanese coast of the Red Sea, located 20 kilometres north of the modern port of Ḥalayib, was known as Sawākin al-Qadīm when discovered by the British explorer and archaeologist Theodore Bent in 1896, leading to confusion for many scholars as to the port’s location. While there have been suggestions of a very early Islamic foundation, the earliest references seem to be in connection with the gold fields of the Wādī al-ʿAllāqī and interactions with Jidda, almost directly opposite on the Arabian coast. The Arab geographers…

Homs has little to show for its eventful ancient and Islamic past. Its two key remains are the citadel hill on the southwest corner of the old walled city and the Great Mosque of Nūr al-Dīn. Excavations in the 1990s on the 30-metre high citadel hill confirmed earlier assumptions that the historic tell dates back to the third millennium BCE (King 2002, 42). The earliest surviving ancient structure was the tower tomb of a leading figure attached to the ruling dynasty of Emesa, Samsigeramos (d. 78 CE). Lying a little to the west of t…

Abū Qubays is a mountain in the Ḥijāz, western Arabia, deemed to be sacred, situated on the eastern boundary of al-masjid al-ḥarām, the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, facing the corner within which the Black Stone ( al-ḥajar al-aswad) is located (Ibn Jubayr, 85). Varying opinions have been expressed regarding the origins of the name of this mountain. Some consider Abū Qubays to be a diminutive of qabas al-nār (firebrand), since it is said that two large pieces of tinder wood ( markhayn) fell from heaven onto this mountain and Adam took them and created fire by striking one against …