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.

Ibn Bashkuwāl
Born(1101-09-00)September , 1101
Died(1183-01-05)January 5, 1183
Other namesChalaf ibn'Abd al-Malik ibn Mas'udd ibn Mūsā ibn Bashkuwāl, Abūl-Qāsim (خلف بن عبد الملك بن مسعود بن موسى بن بشكوال, أبو القاسم), and Ḫalaf b.'Abd al- Malik b. Mas'ūd b. Mūsā b. Baškuwāl, Abū'l-Qāsim
Occupation(s)biographer, historian, encyclopedist

Life

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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

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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

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  • 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

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  1. ^ a b 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. ^ a b 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.