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The peoples of the north in the eyes of the Muslims of Umayyad al-Andalus (711–1031)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2007

Amira K. Bennison
Amira K. Bennison
Affiliation:
Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 2007 , pp. 157 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

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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.

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29 Ibn ayyān, al-Muqtabas V, pp. 324–5.

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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.

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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).

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54 Golden, ‘Saāliba’, p. 872.

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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.

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