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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2007
This article explores how the Muslim inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula, known in Arabic as al-Andalus, located themselves in space and time in relation to other ‘Europeans’. It has been asserted that Muslims did not show much interest in the peoples living beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world before European imperialism impacted upon them, and that much of what they did write was formulaic and predicated on the primordial religious enmity which existed between Muslims and non-Muslims. While true up to a point, this article attempts to nuance this argument, and point to ways in which the Muslims of al-Andalus did refer to other peoples and other epochs, and incorporate them into their worldview, thereby positioning themselves not only within the dār al-islām but also within a Mediterranean historical trajectory. It also looks at the ways in which northerners did participate in and shape Andalusi society, despite the reluctance of much Arabic writing to fully record or recognize this phenomenon.
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2 Christys, Ann ,Christians in al-Andalus (711–1000), London: Curzon, 2002, p. 2.Google Scholar
3 Bernard, Lewis provides a summary of Muslim geographers’ knowledge about Europe in The Muslim discovery of Europe, London: Phoenix, 2000 (originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1982), pp. 137–51. He also stresses the lack of interest shown by Muslims concerning the wider world.Google Scholar
4 Ahmad, Shboul, Al-Mas‘udi and his world, London: Ithaca Press, 1979Google Scholar, p. 1. Pellat, however, prefers a date prior to 893 for his birth. Ch. Pellat, ‘al-Mascūdī’, Encyclopedia of Islam, second edition (henceforth EI 2): 6, pp. 784–9.
5 Shboul, Al-Mas‘udi, p. 2.
6 Shboul, Al-Mas‘udi, pp. 151–226.
7 Pellat, ‘al-Mascūdī’, p. 784.
8 P. Golden [C. E. Bosworth, P. Guichard and M. Meouak], ‘Sa
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9 Sénac, Philip, Les carolingiens et al-Andalus, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2002, p. 15.Google Scholar
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11 The usual terms for Muslims were ‘Saracens’, ‘Ismaelites’, ‘Babylonians’. Manzano Moreno, ‘Christian-Muslim frontier’, p. 87.
12 Barkai, Cristianos y musulmanes, pp. 30–4.
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15 For a translation of the Treaty of Theodemir, see Constable, Olivia, ed., Medieval Iberia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 37–8.Google Scholar
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17 Ibn al-Qū
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al-Andalus, Don Julián de Ribera, ed. and trans., Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1926, pp. 4–6 (Arabic text). The implications of this story for the integration of Christians into Muslim society are explored further in Christys, Christians, pp. 158–83.
18 Martinez-Gros, Gabriel, L’idéologie omeyyade: la construction de la légitimité du Califat de Cordoue (X–XI siècles), Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1992, p. 74.Google Scholar
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21 Ibn 
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22 Bacharach, See J. , ‘Administrative complexes, palaces and citadels: changes in the loci of Muslim rule’, in Bierman, I. , Abou-El-Hajj, R. and Preziozi, D., The Ottoman city and its parts, New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas, 1991, pp. 111–28.Google Scholar
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24 For instance, al-Idrīsī, Opus geographicum, Cerulli, E.et al., eds., Fasicules 5–8, Rome and Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, 1970Google Scholar, p. 579; Amad al-Maqqarī, Naf al-īb min ghusn al-Andalus al-raīb wa dhikr wazīriha Lisān al-Dīn b. al-Khaīb, Ihsān cAbbās, ed., Beirut: Dār Sādir, 1968, vol. 1: 4, p. 480, where he states, ‘al-Rāzī said that the bridge which spans this river in Cordoba is one of the greatest and most amazing monuments of al-Andalus. According to Ibn ayyān and others its builder was Sam b. Mālik al-Khawlānī, governor of al-Andalus appointed by cUmar b. cAbd al-Azīz – May God be satisfied with him.’ The Umayyads later reconstructed and embellished it. Ibn ayyān reported that it was said that ‘a bridge constructed by the cajā’im (non-Arabs) existed there before the arrival of the Arabs … but the passing of time had led to its collapse’.
25 For a fuller discussion of Umayyad urban planning, see Bennison, A. K. , ‘Power and the city in the Islamic West from the Umayyads to the Almohads’, in Bennison, A. K. and Gascoigne, A. L., eds., Cities in the pre-modern Islamic world: the urban impact of religion, state, and society, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2007Google Scholar, forthcoming.
26 Sénac, Carolingiens, pp. 15, 29.
27 Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-Mughrib, vol. 2, pp. 11, 186–7.
28 Ibn ayyān, al-Muqtabas V, p. 324. In Arabic the words for darkness (kafra) and unbelief (kufr) have the same root, and one therefore evokes the other.
29 Ibn ayyān, al-Muqtabas V, pp. 324–5.
30 For example in the mere six pages dedicated to the reign of cAbd al-Ramān II (822–52), ten 
awā’if are mentioned in varying detail. Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-Mughrib, vol. 2, pp. 83–9.
31 Sénac, Carolingiens, pp. 91–4.
32 Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, vol. 2, pp. 94–5.
33 Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, vol. 2, p. 221.
34 Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, vol. 2, p. 235.
35 Vallvé J. and Ruiz Girela F., La primera década del reinado de Al-akam I, según el Muqtabis II, 1 de Ben ayyān de Córdoba (m.469 h./1076 J. C.), Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2003, pp. 42, 44, 46 (Arabic text).
36 Barceló, Miquel, ‘El primer trazo de un “déspota oriental”?’, in Barceló, M., El sol que salió por occidente: estudios sobre el estado Omeya en al-Andalus, Jaén: Universidad de Jaén, 1997Google Scholar, p. 164. Christys, Christians, pp. 136–42.
37 de Saint-Arnoul, Jean, La vie de Jean, Abbé de Gorze, Parisse, Michel, ed. and trans., Paris: Picard, 1999Google Scholar. In his entry for 342 AH (953–4), Ibn cIdhārī simply says that messengers arrived from Otto (Hūtū), King of the Saqāliba, with no further comment. Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, p. 218.
38 According to al-Hajji, Fraxinetum was completely independent of Cordoba, however Barceló et al. point to evidence in several sources asserting that the Umayyads exercised some control over Fraxinetum. Al-Hajji, Andalusian diplomatic relations, p. 211, note 5; Barceló, ‘El primer trazo de un “déspota oriental”?’, p. 168.
39 Saint-Arnoul, La vie de Jean, p. 145.
40 Saint-Arnoul, La vie de Jean, p. 155.
41 Saint-Arnoul, La vie de Jean, p. 143.
42 Saint-Arnoul, La vie de Jean, p. 161.
43 Daniel, N. , The Arabs and medieval Europe, London: Longman, 1979Google Scholar, pp. 64–70; Barceló, ‘El primer trazo de un “déspota oriental”?’, p. 170.
44 al-Hajji, Andalusian diplomatic relations, pp. 228–71.
45 Ibn ayyān, Crónica de los emires Al akam I y Abdarra mān II entre los años 796 y 847 [al-Muqtabis II–1], translated by Mamūd A. Makkī and Federico Corriente, Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo, 2001, pp. 312–16; Ibn cIdhārī, al-Bayān al-Mughrib, vol. 2, pp. 87–8.
46 Ibn cldhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, vol. 2, pp. 96–7, 239, 241.
47 H. T. Norris, The Berbers in Arabic literature, London: Longman, 1982, pp. 46–7.
48 I am greatly indebted to James Montgomery for sharing his extensive knowledge about the Vikings in Arabic literature with me in the course of several personal communications, upon which I have based this paragraph. See James Montgomery, ‘The Vikings in Arabic sources’, in Stefan Brink and Neil Price, eds., The Viking world, London (forthcoming).
49 Miquel Barceló, ‘Por qué y cómo viajaron las monedas andalusíes a Europa durante el emirato y al califato desde 98/716–717 al 403/1012–13’, in Barceló, El sol que salió por occidente, pp. 85–102.
50 Vallvé Bermejo, J. , ed., Ben Haián de Córdoba Muqtabis II: Anales de los emires de Córdoba Alhaquem I (180–206H./796–822J.C.) y Abderramán (206–232H./822–847J.C.), Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1999Google Scholar, pp. 185–6/180r.
51 al-Hajji, A. , Andalusian diplomatic relations with western Europe during the Umayyad period, Beirut: Dār al-Irshād, 1970, pp. 186–203.Google Scholar
52 Sara, M. Pons-Sanz, ‘Whom did al-Ghazāl meet? An exchange of embassies between the Arabs from al-Andalus and the Vikings’, Saga-Book, 28, 2004Google Scholar, pp. 5–28.
53 al-Hajji, Andalusian diplomatic relations, pp. 172–81.
54 Golden, ‘Saāliba’, p. 872.
55 Guichard and Meouak, ‘Saāliba’, p. 880.
56 Golden and Bosworth, ‘Saāliba’, pp. 877, 879.
57 Saint-Arnoul, La vie de Jean, pp. 145, 157.
58 Barceló, ‘El primer trazo de un “déspota oriental”?’, pp. 165, 167.
59 Guichard and Meouak, ‘Saāliba’, p. 879.
60 Bermejo, Vallvé, Muqtabis IIGoogle Scholar, p. 114/144v.
61 See Monroe, James T.The Shu’ūbiyya in al-Andalus: The Risāla of Ibn García and five refutations, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970Google Scholar; Göran Larsson, Ibn García’s shu cūbiyya letter: ethnic and theological tensions in medieval al-Andalus, Leiden: Brill, 2003.
62 Although the concern felt by Christians about the spread of Arabic as a literary and public language is better known, Arabs worried about the use of Romance in the domestic environment. Marigel Gallego-Garcia, ‘The languages of medieval Iberia and their religious dimension’, Medieval Encounters, 9, 2003, pp. 107–39.
63 cAbd al-Wāid al-Marrākushī, al-Mu cjib fī talkhī akhbār al-Maghrib, Muammad Sacīd al-cAryān, ed., Cairo: al-Majlis al-Acā li’l-Shu’ūn al-Islāmiyya, 1383/1963, pp. 83–4.
