Peace with al-Andalus? A chronicle of the 'Muslim Spain' of the Caliph of Córdoba

"On Saturday, the 16th of Sawwal of this year [12 August 971] , Caliph al-Hakam sat on the throne in the Eastern Hall of the Alcázar of al-Zahra , with all solemnity and pomp, to receive the ambassadors of foreign kings who had gathered at his court. The viziers were in attendance, the hajibes ministered to him according to custom, and there were the usual military formations inside and outside the Alcázar." The " foreign kings" were none other than the Christian kings of the north, whose ambassadors came to Medina Azahara on that Saturday in August to extend the truce, according to the indispensable palatine annals of the Umayyad Caliph of Córdoba Al-Hakam II, a chronicle of the affairs of state of his reign in al-Andalus .

"He first received the two ambassadors of Sancho, son of García , prince of the Bascones: Bassal the abbot, and Velasco, judge of Nájera, each of whom was accompanied by two important personages from their respective retinues. Next he received al'arif 'Abd al-Malik, who came from the court of Elvira, daughter of Ramiro, in the company of her ambassador, al-Layt. Then he received Habib Tawila and Sa'ada, ambassadors of Fernando, son of Flaín, son of the count of Salmantica. After them he received García son of ¿Gatón?, ambassador of García, son of Fernando, son of Gundisalb, ​​lord of Castile and Álava . Then he received Esimeno, ambassador of Fernando, son of Asür [Ansúrez] with his companion ¿Elgas? Finally, he received the two ambassadors of Count Gundisalb:* Sulaymān and Jalaf ibn Sad. Each of these embassies gave news of the situation in their respective countries and conveyed on behalf of their principal the desire to extend the existing truce. They were given kind words and received abundant gifts and presents, after which they departed for their respective principals."

The text, an unparalleled work in the historiography of al-Andalus, corresponds to the classic translation by the Arabist Emilio García Goméz of Ibn Hayyan's Al Muqtabis . It shows that period of maximum splendor of the caliphate, which began precisely with the peace of Caliph Al-Hakam, the same period in which a major expansion of the mosque of Córdoba was undertaken, and in which the caliphate mainly fought, however, against the Fatimid Arabs of North Africa. A detailed account of what was happening within the walls of Medina Azahara and whose only translation of the Arabic manuscript is now reissued by Almuzara with what s Palatine Annals of the Caliph of Córdoba Al-Hakam II. The Caliphate of Córdoba in the Muqtabis of Ibn Hayyan . These annals bear the signature of another author, Isa Ibn Ahmad Al-Razi, at the top of the annals. This apparent contradiction explains the complexity of a manuscript with a history as fascinating as that of the palace chronicles it contains about Caliph Al-Hakam II.

"Ibn Ḥayyan was an 11th-century historian from Cordoba, a contemporary of authors such as Ibn Ḥazm. He composed a monumental work in the form of an encyclopedia on the history of al-Andalus, which includes several sections dedicated to different periods." The editor of the palatine annals, Daniel Valdivieso Ramos , explains to El Confidencial: "Among his writings, a work stands out, focusing on the lineages linked to Almanzor and the outbreak of the fitna or Andalusian civil war —events that he himself witnessed—, as well as another entitled al-Matin (“The Solid”). However, the most interesting is his multi-volume work known as al-Muqtabis , where he compiled the history of al-Andalus from its origins to the outbreak of the fitna —the civil war that led to the Taifa Kingdoms— . In the sections that deal with periods prior to his birth —Ibn Ḥayyan was born at the end of the 10th century—, he acted as a modern historian: he reconstructed the events using the chronicles and testimonies of previous authors, so that Ibn Ḥayyan literally copies the texts of Isa al-Razi, who had been secretary of the chancellery of Caliph al-Hakam II himself."

Of this great work by Ibn Hayyan only four fragments were preserved, one of which was dedicated to the caliphate of Al-Hakam II.

In some ways, this was a great advantage, since Ibn Hayyan's work referred directly to a primary source, such as the valuable pen of al-Hakam's own secretary, Isa al-Razi. However, the problem is that only four fragments of Ibn Hayyan's great work have survived, one of which, belonging to volume VII, was dedicated to the caliphate of al-Hakam II. It covers the years 971 to 975: five years within the caliph's court that provide an astonishing understanding of the inner workings of palace affairs, to the point that the Arabist Emilio García Cómez, author of the translation, explained in his prologue in the 1960s: "They are nothing more than five years, but five years that happen to be the best known of our entire High Middle Ages (what we wouldn't give to know of five such years at the court of León or Pamplona!)".

The story of the discovery of the manuscript itself is, moreover, a fascinating journey made possible thanks to the efforts of historian and Arabist Francisco Codera, of the Royal Academy of History. Codera was the driving force behind the Spanish Arabist school at the end of the 19th century, a school that Emilio García Gómez himself would later complete in the middle of the last century . It was during this time that the term "Muslim Spain" was coined and popularized, giving the period of al-Andalus weight in national history beyond the idea of ​​the Reconquista—which it complemented, according to his thesis—and which is now so questioned by some historians, to the point of denying the Arab invasion itself in some cases.

How did the fragment of Ibn Hayyan's Muqtabis end up in Madrid ? As Emilio García explained: "Towards the end of 1886, at the initiative of the Royal Academy of History, Don Francisco Codera was commissioned by the Minister of Public Works to study or copy manuscripts that might be of interest to Spanish history in the public and private libraries of Algeria and Tunisia . He began in Oran, continued in Algiers, and then moved on to Tunis." Codera was striving to ensure that Spanish Arabism would not lag behind that of the rest of Europe, at a time when the study of the Andalusian question had intensified. As a result of his travels, he was alerted by his colleague, the French orientalist M. Fagnan, who wrote to him from Algiers to inform him that in Constantina there was a private library owned by the heirs of Sidi Hammuda that contained two Andalusian codices, of one of which he only gave the title: al-Muqtabis.

An attempt was made to recover the original manuscript in Algeria to verify that it had disappeared.

Codera immediately suspected that it was the Muqtabis of Ibn Hayyan and asked José Perals, Constantine's Spanish vice-consul in Algeria , to obtain it, an impossible task since the owners did not want to sell it. Perals, however, managed to obtain a 15-day loan, during which time they were able to make a copy of the document. As Emilio García recounted: "Codera arrived in Constantine four days before the deadline; he took it to the hotel; took his notes; transcribed some passages, and commissioned M. Bourgeois, a French interpreter to whom he had been recommended, to produce a complete copy for the Academy." The valuable text was finally preserved in the Royal Academy of Madrid , where, despite the relatively poor copy due to the haste of the entire process, it would become essential, since shortly afterward an attempt was made to recover the original manuscript in Algeria to verify that it had disappeared.

Thus, the fragment of the Muqtabis copied at the request of Francisco Codera and later translated by Emilio García-Romero , became the only direct testimony of the years at the court of Caliph Al Hakam II. What do these palace annals contain? Although according to García they correspond to "a rather ordinary five-year period, without sensational or dazzling events", they are, nevertheless, "five years like five windows through which we peer into the interiority of Cordoban life, to find out about the weather; the embassies that arrived ; the personages who fell ill; the officials who were promoted and those who fell into disgrace; the flooding of the river; the palace festivals; the progress of the wars; the course of the harvests; the capture of criminals; urban reforms; a child prodigy, a native of Cártama..."

The period of Al-Hakam II is known precisely for this truce with the Christian kingdoms and the splendor of the caliphate, which would later be consecrated by Almanzor, but in addition to what relates to the matters of the palace and the valuable source of information that this window to the interior life of the Cordoban represents, "it is a very enjoyable and very interesting read with fascinating episodes," according to the editor Daniel Valdivieso, "which needed a new edition because, in addition to the fact that only battered manuals from the Society of Studies and Publications of the Royal Academy from 1967 remained, second-hand, and hardly accessible, it has been provided with onomastic and toponymic indexes, which it did not originally have."

One of these episodes is, for example, the siege of the castle of Gormaz, in which four years after this truce of the Christian kingdoms of the north, precisely towards the end of the period covered by the manuscript, the chronicler Isa Al Razi writes: "The Christian tyrants who had agreed to besiege the castle were the following: Sancho ibn García ibn Sancho the Basque, lord of Pamplona ; his relative by alliance García ibn Fernando ibn Gundisalb, ​​lord of Castile and its jurisdiction; Fernando ibn al-Sür [Ansúrez], lord of Peñafiel and its surroundings; the Banü Gómez, lords of Álava and the castles , among others, who surrounded the fortress with some 60,000 infidel men, and some say more, at the instigation of the king of them all, Ramiro ibn Sancho ibn Ramiro, who had sent and assisted them for that purpose." . Later, the king himself, when they were unable to conquer it, accused them of slowness, impotence and incapacity, and came to the castle from his capital, the city of León (God exterminate it!) in the midst of a thunderous army and accompanied by his paternal aunt, the unfaithful Elvira, the same one who had previously not ceased to ratify the truce and to request its validity, but who later was the one who broke it, deluded by the victory of her party."