Ibn Bashkuwal

Andalusian traditionalist and biographer

Ibn Bashkuwāl, Khalaf ibn ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Mas'ud ibn Musa ibn Bashkuwāl ibn Yûsuf al-Ansârī,^[1] Abū'l-Qāsim (خلف بن عبد الملك بن مسعود بن موسى بن بشكوال بن يوسف, أبو القاسم) (var. Ḫalaf b.'Abd al- Malik b. Mas'ūd b. Mūsā b. Baškuwāl, Abū'l-Qāsim; September 1101 in Córdoba – 5 January 1183 in Sarrión), was an influential Andalusian traditionist and biographer working in Córdoba and Seville.

Life

His ancestry was Arab and was a descendant of al-Ansar^[1]- he was known as Ibn Bashkuwāl ("son of Pasqual") in the Valencia region. His first teacher was his father (d.1139), to whom he dedicates a section in his biographical work. He studied with the most famous scholars of his time: Ibn al-'Arabī al-Ma'āfirī and the lawyer Abūl-Walīd ibn Ruschd (died 1126), the grandfather of the philosopher Averroës. In his hometown he worked as a consulting lawyer (faqīh mušāwar)^[2] and for a short time as deputy Qādī in Seville under Ibn al-'Arabī. It appears he never travelled to the East and his scholarship derived from the Andalusian-Islamic tradition. His biographer Ibn Abbār (d. Jan 1260)^[3] mentions 41 scholars in Córdoba and Seville, with whom he studied.^[4] His library held works by authors from the Islamic East; of which is the K. as-Siyar from Abū Ishāq al-Fazārī, on whose title page he is documented as the owner of the work.^[5]

He died in January 1183 and was buried in the cemetery known then as Ibn 'Abbās Scholars’ Cemetery in Córdoba^[6]

Works

Ibn Bashkuwāl's biographers attribute him authorship of twenty-six known books, treatises and monographs of biographical content,^[7] and list his teachers and the texts he studied.^[8] Among his few surviving works are:

• Aṣ-ṣila fī ta'rīḫ a'immat al-Andalus (الصلة في تاريخ أئمة الأندلس), ‘Continuation of the scholarly history of al-Andalus’; continuation of Ibn al-Faraḍī's (d. 1013) famous biographical dictionary of Islamic Spain's scholars,^[9] which contains 1541^[10] biographies of 11th and 12th century Andalusian scholars. In a dedicated chapter (faṣl) he presents the life of the so-called "strangers" (al-ghurabā), who came to al-Andalus from the Orient and Ifrīqiya.^[11]
  • Ibn al-Abbār (1199-1260) from Valencia^[3] wrote the supplement (Takmilat K. as-ṣila) and filled some gaps found in the original work. In the first volume he wrote a detailed biography of Ibn Baškuwāl.^[12]
  • Another supplement and continuation of Ibn Baškuwāl's work was written by Ibn az-Zubair al-Gharnāṭī (1230, Jaén (Jayyān) – 1309, Granada (Gharnāṭa))^[13] entitled ilat aṣ-ṣila ('The continuation of the ṣila') or: 'The story of the scholars of al-Andalus, in which he (the author) of the Kitāb aṣ-ṣila continued by Ibn Baškuwāl'.^[14] This book deals with the Andalusian scholars of the 12th and 13th centuries. A fragment of the work was published by the French orientalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal in 1937 (Rabat). Three further volumes with corrections and additions to the first edition were published in 1993 (Rabat).^[15]
• Kitāb ġawāmiḍ al-asmā' al-mubhama al-wāqi'a fī-'l-aḥādīṯ al-musnada (كتاب غوامض الأسماء المبهمة الواقعة في الأحاديث المسندة), ‘Secrets of indistinct names found in Hadiths with complete Isnads’; two-volume biographical compilation and explanation of personal names, names of ancestry contradictorily, or incorrectly, reported in the literature.^[16]
• Shuyūḥ'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb al-Qurashī (شيوخ عبد الله بن وهب القرشي), ‘Teachers of 'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb al-Qurashī’; biographical dictionary of teachers of the Egyptian scholar 'Abdallāh ibn Wahb^[17] with rich information about its importance as a primary source of Ibn Wahb. Contains an appended biography of Ibn Wahb.^[18]
• Kitāb al-mustaġīṯīn bi-lāhāhi (كتاب المستغيثين بالله), ‘Book of the beseechers of God’; collected hadith with complete isnād traditions containing the Holy Du'ā ' intercessions.^[19] In this work Ibn Bashkuwāl cites the titles and authors of thirteen source works.^[20] At the beginning of this collection for example, the intercession of the Prophet Muḥammad in the Battle of Badr is linked to the Qur’ān verse:

When you called your Lord for help! Then he heard you (and frowned): I will assist you with a thousand angels...

— Quran 8:9, translation: Rudi Paret

Literature

• The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill. Leiden. Vol. 3, p. 733
• Manuela Marín (ed.): Ibn Baškuwāl (m 578/1183): Kitāb al-mustagīṯīn bi-llāh. (En busca del socorro divino). Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas. 8th Madrid 1991.
• Carl Brockelmann: History of Arabic Literature. 2nd Edition. Brill, Leiden 1943. Vol.1, p. 415
• Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature. Vol.1. Brill, Leiden 1967.
• Qāsim'Alī Sa'd: Muḥaddiṯ al-Andalus al-Ḥāfiẓ al-mu'arriḫ Abū'l-Qāsim b. Baškuwāl. Šaḫṣiyyatu-hu wa-mu'allafātu-hu. ('The Hadith scholar of al-Andalus, the historian Abū'l-Qāsim b Baškuwāl, his personality and his works'). In: Maǧallat Ǧāmi'at Umm al-Qurā li-'ulūm aš-šarī'a wa -'l-luġa al-'arabiyya wa-dābi-hā. Vol.18, n.28 (Mecca, 2003), p. 222-288 (in Arabic)

References

1. Ibn Khallikan (1843). Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Volume 1. Leadenhall Street, London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain & Ireland. pp. 491–492.
2. For the meaning: Reinhart Dozy: Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes. Brill. Leiden 1867. Vol. 1, p. 801; on the function: Christian Müller: Court practice in the city-state of Córdoba. The right of society in a Malay-Islamic legal tradition of the 5th/11th century. Brill. Leiden. 1999. pp. 151-154.
3. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol.3, p.673
4. Manuela Marín (1991), pp. 17-20
5. Miklos Muranyi: The Kitāb al-Siyar of Abū Isḥāq al-Siyar Fazārī. The manuscript of the Qarawiyyin Library at Fez. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. 6 (1985), p. 67; Fig. II and V.
6. Torrés Balbás: Cementerios hispanomusulmanes. In al-Andalus 22 (1957), p. 165.
7. Manuela Marín (1991), pp.23-25
8. Heinrich Schützinger: The Kitāb al-Mu'ǧam of Abū Bakr al-Ismā'īlī. (Treatises for the News of the East, Vol. XLIII, 3. Wiesbaden 1978), pp. 25, No. 31.
9. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol. 3, p. 762
10. 1541 is the total of entries in the series Al-maktaba al-andalusiyya , 6. In two vols., Cairo 1966.
11. Edited by F. Codera. Madrid 1882-1883 in two volumes
12. Edited by F. Codera. Madrid 1888-1889 in two volumes. The beginning of the work up to the letter jīm appeared in Algiers in 1920
13. The Encyclopedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol.3, p.976
14. The statement in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol.3, p.673, where the continuation of Takmila by Ibn al-Abbār is wrong.
15. Edited by 'Abd as-Salām al-Harrās and Sa'īd A'rāb. Publications of the Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs.
16. Beirut, 1987.
17. See: Fuat Sezgin (1967), p.466, n.4. The note "ibn private possession of Ibr. al-Kattānī in Rabāṭ" should be deleted.
18. Edited by 'Āmir Ḥasan Ṣabrī. Beirut 2007
19. Published and translated into Spanish by Manuela Marín (1991)
20. Manuela Marín (1991), pp.29-33.