by Robert Irwin
Ibn Zunbul, Akhira al-Mamalik. Waqi‘a al-Sultan al-Ghuri
ma‘a Salim al-Thani, trans. Robert Irwin, ‘Abd al-Mu’nim
‘Amir edn. (Cairo, 1962), pp. 57–9
COMMENTARY
Although there are two printed versions and many manuscripts, there is no properly established text of Ibn Zunbul’s book and the text I have used for my translation has its problems and obscurities.
I have translated furusiyya as ‘horsemanship’, but it is not a very satisfactory translation because furusiyya also has connotations of chivalry, courage and military prowess. Medieval Arab treatises on the arts of war in general and on the requirements of Holy War (jihad) in particular were known as books of furusiyya.
‘Ali Ibn Shahwar in my text is a corrupt rendering of ‘Ali Ibn Shahsiwar. Shahsiwar had been an Ottoman client prince and enemy of the Mamluks in eastern Anatolia. (Despite Kurtbay’s boast, an ‘Ali ibn Shahsiwar in fact seems to have survived the Ottoman conquest of Egypt and outlived Kurtbay.)
In this extract, ‘decorum’ is my translation of adab. As we have seen, in other contexts the same word could be translated as belles-lettres.
‘Fate’ is manaya, which has the more specific sense of fated death. Manaya was one of the key notions in pre-Islamic poetry. Arab fatalism predates the revelation of the Qur’an.
‘Red Death’ is a stock phrase for violent death, as opposed to ‘White Death’, which is a natural death.
Bunduq means a bullet. (It also means a hazelnut.) Bunduqiyya means a rifle, musket, or arquebus. Coincidentally, Bunduqiyya is also Arabic for Venice – hence doubtless the Maghribi’s impression that the musket originated in Venice.
Historically, the alleged dialogue between Selim and Kurtbay is a piece of nonsense. The Mamluks loved guns and had been using them for decades, before any alleged arrival of a prophetic Maghribi at the court of Qansuh al-Ghuri. They both bought guns from their Venetian allies and they also manufactured them themselves. The story reflects the prejudices of Ibn Zunbul rather than those of the ruling military elite of Mamluk Egypt. In fact Kurtbay, a former governor or wali of Cairo, was discovered in hiding and seems to have been peremptorily executed. It is all but certain that his argument with Selim never took place. The dialogue is fiction, not history. The meeting was invented by Ibn Zunbul to provide a context for a meditation on the decline of chivalry and the doom of dynasties – themes he returns to again and again in his historical romance.
Historians of Arabic literature have neglected Ibn Zunbul. (He does not even rate an entry in the capacious Encyclopaedia of Islam.) It may well be that other writers from the sixteenth century onwards have been overlooked. The decline of Arabic literature in the post-medieval period may possibly be an optical illusion, the product of insufficient research into the literary productions of the period in question. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is certain that relatively few texts from the sixteenth, seventeenth or eighteenth centuries have been published and edited (and even fewer have been translated into English).
Although it is conceivable that the decline of Arabic literature in what European historians call the ‘early modern period’ is more apparent than real, there does appear to have been a decline both in the quantity and quality of original writing in Arabic in that period. We find no poets who can bear comparison with Mutanabbi or Ibn al-Farid, or prose writers who can match the achievements of Ibn Hazm or Hariri. This phenomenon requires explanation. In part it may be due to the relegation of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and much of North Africa to the status of provinces within the Ottoman Turkish empire. Cairo was no longer the seat of a court which could dispense lavish patronage to writers. (Baghdad had, of course, ceased to be a significant centre of patronage centuries earlier.) The culture of the court elites tended to be Turco-Persian rather than Arabic. Outside the courts, Arabic culture was by and large dominated by a rigorist Sunni orthodoxy, something which had not been the case in, for instance, the tenth century. Horizons seemed to have shrunk and there were to be no more translations from the Greek, or from more modern European languages, until the late eighteenth century. The poetry and fiction which was produced in the Ottoman centuries was mostly conventional and backward-looking (though there were of course occasional exceptions, such as the satirical verse of the seventeenth-century Egyptian, al-Shirbini).
In time Arabic literature would revive. That revival should be seen as beginning in the late eighteenth century with al-Jabarti (d. 1825) and his vividly written chronicle of Egyptian history since the Ottoman conquest. In the late nineteenth century Jurji Zaydan practically invented the Arabic novel (though, as we have seen, he did have one precursor in Ibn Zunbul). In the twentieth century there was a real renaissance of Arab poetry. Experimental poets like Adonis have found precedents and licence for their experiments in the works of medieval poets. Innovative novelists such as Naguib Mahfouz, Gamal al-Ghitaniy and Tayyib Salih have succeeded in breaking away from the Western form of the novel and have sometimes drawn on medieval Arab prose works in order to do so. But all this should really be the subject of another book.
Index
‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim 197, 203
al-‘Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf, Abu al-Fadl 121–2, 124
‘Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya, known as al-Katib, ‘the Scribe’ 63, 262
Risala ila al-Kuttab 63–5
‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, Caliph 44, 58–9
‘Abd al-Mu’min, Yusuf ibn 290
‘Abd al-Rahman I 245
‘Abd al-Rahman II 245
‘Abd al-Rahman III,
Caliph 246–7
Abdela the Saracen 287
Abraha 338, 345
Abraham 358
Abu al-‘Atahiyya (Abu al-Ishaq Isma‘il ibn al-Qasim) 126–7
Abu al-Faraj ‘AH ibn alHusayn ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qurashi al-Isfahani xi, xiii, 123, 154, 155, 218–19
Kitab al-Aghani (‘Book of Songs’) xi, 154–5, 218–19
Abu al-Fida xii
Abu al-Hudhail
Muhammad ibn al-Hudhail, known as Allaf ‘The Fodder Merchant’ 106
Abu al-Tayyib [ibn Idris] 152
Abu ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ala 5–6
Abu Bakr, Caliph 42
Abu Bakr (poet) 268
Abu Darda 103, 104
Abu Dhu‘ayb 60–61
Abu Dulaf: Qasida Sasaniyya 178
Abu Firas al-Harith ibn Sa’id al-Hamdani 219, 223–5
Rumiyyat (‘Byzantine Poems’) 224–5
Abu Hamid al-Gharnati 354
Abu Harith Ghaylan ibn ‘Uqba (Dhu’l-Rummah, ‘He of the Tent Peg’) 134, 135
Abu Malik al-Hadrami 106
Abu Nuwas (Abu Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hani’ al-Hakimi) 56, 60, 71, 74, 84, 86–7, 89, 114, 123–6, 210, 261–2
Satanic Panic 125–6
Abu Sulaiman al-Mantiqi al-Sijistani 173, 174–7
Abu Tammam 118, 132–8, 143, 210
Hamasa (‘Courage’) xi, 138, 352
‘Spring’ qasida 142
Abu Uthman al-Mazini 58
Abu Yazid al-Bistami 128
Abu-l-Aswad 103, 104
Abu‘l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Qasim 211–15
Abu‘l-Qasim 211–12
Abukarib (As’ad Kamil) 133, 135
Adonis 32, 123, 229–30
‘Adud al-Dawla, Emir 148, 155, 215, 221
al-Adwani, Dhu-l-Isba’ 102, 104
Al-Ahnaf ibn al-Qays 102–3, 104
A’isha 111
al-Akhtal, Ghiyath ibn
Ghawth 43–5, 47, 56, 58, 67, 238
Alexander, Emperor 151–2., 153
Alf Layla wa-Layla see The Thousand and One Nights
Alfonsi, Petrus: Disciplina Clericalis 313
Alfonso VI of Castile 266, 287
‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, Caliph 42, 65, 164, 218, 248, 250, 431, 433
Ali ibn Maitham 106 Ali ibn Mansur 107
al-Amin, Caliph 123
‘Amiri, Abu’l-Hasan 2–13
Amra 111
al-Anbari, Abu Baler 354
‘Antara ibn Shaddad 17–18, 238, 417
Muallaqa 17
The Arabian Nights see The Thousand and One Nights
Arberry, A. J. 14
Aristotle 75, 84, 213, 215
Ethics 75
Nicomachean Ethics 211
Poetics 75, 139
Al-A’sha 103, 104
al-Asma‘i 418
Athir al-Din Muhammad ibn Yusuf Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi xiv, 352–4
Idrak (‘The Achievement’) 352
Avicenna see Ibn Sina Bahram V (Bahram Gur) 151, 153
Baldrick, Julian 215
Baqil 85, 89
al-Baqillani 13, 31
Barbier de Meynard, A. C. 207
Bashshar ibn Burd, Abu Mu’adh ix, 31, 74, 84, 118–21, 123, 238
Baybars, Sultan 361
Beeston, Professor A. F. L. ix
Beowulf 6, 48
Bishr ibn Mu’tamir 108
Boabdil see under Muhammad XII of Granada
Book of Sindbad 154
Browne, Sir Thomas: ‘Urne Burial’ 100
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ‘The Dead Pan’ 42
al-Buhturi, Abu ‘Ubada al-Walid ibn ‘Ubayd 138–42, 143, 146, 210, 328, 354
Burkhardt, Jacob 149
al-Busiri, Sharaf al-Din Muhammad 333–4
Qasidat al-Burda (‘The Ode of the Mantle’; ‘Luminous Stars in Praise of the Best of Mankind’) 333, 334–46
Buzurjmihr (Burzoe) 152, 154
Cahen, Claude 209
Charles, Martel 244
Charles of Orleans 224
Chosroes I Anurshirwan 154
Chosroes (Khosro Parvez; Khusraw) 133, 135
Corvo, Baron (Frederick Rolfe) 252
al-Dabbi, Mufaddal 117
Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy 243, 263, 313
Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe 291, 313
the Delectable War between Mutton and the Refreshments of the Market Place 423–30
Descartes, René 324
al-Dhahabi 329
Dhu’l-Rummah see Abu Harith Ghaylan ibn ‘Uqba
Eliot, T. S. 300
The Encyclopaedia of Islam xiv, 187, 447
Ephraem, St 241–2
Euclid: The Book of Euclid 74
Fahrenheit 451 (film) 354
Farabi 75, 219
Canons of Poetry (Risala fi Qaqanin Sina’a al-Shi ’r) 139
al-Farazdaq, Tammam ibn Ghalib 45–7, 56, 67
Ferdinand III of Castile 305
Firdawsi: Shahnama 148, 153, 441, 442, 443
Foucault, Michel: The Order of Things 284
Fuentes, Carlos 78
Gabriel, Archangel 30, 39
Galen 111–12, 265
Gayangos, P. de 313
Ghayat al-Hakim (‘Goal of the Sage’) 283–7
al-Ghazzali, Abu Hamid Muhammad 128, 193, 2–97, 323–8
Ihya al-‘Ulum al-Din (‘The Revival of Religious Sciences’) 325
Kimiya-yi Sa’dat (‘The Alchemy of Happiness’) 325
Mishkat al-Anwar (‘The Niche of Lights’) 324–5
Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal (‘The Deliverance from Error’) 325–8
Tahafut al-Falasifa (‘The Incoherence of Philosophers’) 325
al-Ghitaniy, Gamal 448
al-Ghuri, Sultan Qansuh 441, 443, 447
Kawkab al-Durri fi-Masa’il al-Ghuri (‘The Glittering Stars regarding the Questions of al-Ghuri’) 441
al-Ghuzuli, ‘Ala al-Din ibn ‘Ali 318, 433
Matali’ al-Budut fi Manazil al-Surur (‘Risings of the Full Moons in the Mansions of Pleasure’) 433–6
Gibbon, Edward 244
al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, governor 45, 65–7, 75
al-Hallaj, Husayn ibn Mansur 128–32, 211, 297, 324
al-Hamadhani, Badi’ al-Zaman 100–101, 148, 178–86, 262
Maqamat 46, 118, 179, 180–86, 262, 360
Hammad ‘Ajrad 120
Hammad al-Rawiyya 16, 62, 117
al-Hariri, Abu Muhammad al-Qasim ibn ‘Ali x, xiii, 187, 315, 448
Maqamat 48, 77, 150, 186, 187–93, 313, 323, 360
Harun-al-Rashid, Caliph 69, 105, 117–18, 121, 127, 154, 165, 218, 442
Hasan of Basra 128
Hazar Afsaneh
(‘Thousand Stories’) 116, 151, 152, 153
Hippocrates 109–10, 265
Hisham ibn al-Hakam 106–7, 108
Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary 170
Homer 75
The Iliad 6, 365
The Odyssey 365
Hourani, George F.: Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times 65
Howarth, Herbert 14
Hud 345
Hudhaifa ibn Badr 265
Huma’i 151, 153
Husayn, Taha 28
al-Husayni, Muhammad ibn Muhammad called Sharif: Nafa’is Majalis al-Sultaniyya (‘The Gems of the Royal Sessions’) 441, 441–3
al-Hutai’ah 218
Iblis (the Devil) 207
Ibn ‘Abbad, Wazir Sahib 170–71, 178, 179, 218, 247, 354
Ibn ‘Abd al-Rabbihi xii, 2–47
The Precious Necklace xi, 247–50
Ibn‘Abdus 271
Ibn al-‘Amid, Vizier
Abu’1-Fadl 171, 211–15
Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhyi al-Din Abu Bakr Muhammad x, 128, 277, 297–300, 313, 328
Fusus al-Hikam (‘Bezels of Wisdom’) 299
Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah (‘The Meccan Revelations’) 299
Shajarat al-Qawm (‘Tree of Existence’) 299
Tarjuman al-Ashwaq (‘the Interpreter of Desires’) 298, 299–300
‘The Treasury of Lovers’ 300
Ibn al-‘A’rabi 102
Ibn al-Athir, Diya’ al-Din Abu’1-Fath Nasr Allah 321–3
Mathal al-Sha’ir fi-Adah al-Katib wa al-Sha’ir (‘The Popular Model for the Discipline of Writer and Poet’) 321–3
Ibn al-Athir, ’Izz al-Din 321
Ibn al-Farid, Sharaf al-Din ‘Umar 128, 297, 328–33, 442, 448
Nazm al-Suluk (‘Poem of the Way’) 328
Al Ta’iyah al-Kubra (‘Great Poem Rhyming in Ta’) 333
Ibn al-Furat 211
Ibn al-Khatib, Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad (Lisan al-Din) 304–6, 309
Ibn al-Labbana 266
Ibn al-Marzuban, Abu Bakr Muhammad 203
Fadl al-Kilab ’ala Kathir Miman Labisa al-Thiyyab (‘The Book of the Superiority over Many Who Wear Clothes’) 203–6
Ibn al-Muqaffa, ‘Abd Allah x, 31, 75–84, 152, 247, 430
Adab al-Kabir (The Grand Book of Conduct’) 83, 193
Kalila wa-Dimna (‘The Ring Dove’) 74, 76–83, 116, 152, 153, 154, 186, 187, 193, 194, 195, 313, 430, 437
Risala al-Sahaba (‘A Letter on the Entourage’) 83
Ibn al-Mu’tazz, Abdallah viii, 143–5, 358
Kitab al-Badi 143
Ibn al-Nadim, Muhammad ibn Ishaq 69, 70, 71, 77, 150
Fihrist (index’) 68, 69–70, 151–4, 242
Ibn al-Qarih 238–9, 242
Ibn al-Rumi, Abu’l-Hasan 43, 74, 145–7
Ibn ‘Ammar 268
Ibn ‘Arabshah, Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Muhammad 78, 436–7
‘Aja’ib al-Maqdur fi-Nawa’ib Timur (‘Wonders of Destiny regarding the Misfortunes Inflicted by Timur’) 437–41
Fakihat al-Khulafa wa Mufakahat al-Zurafa’ (The Caliph’s Delicacy and Joke of the Refined’) 437
Ibn Buwaih, Ahmad 228
Ibn Daniyal, Shams al-Din Muhammad 359–60
‘Ajib wa-Gharib (‘Marvellous and Strange’) 360–64
‘Al-Mutayyam wa’l-Da’i’ al-Yutayyim (The Man Distracted by Passion and the Little Vagabond Orphan’) 364
Tayfal-Khayyal (The Imaginary Phantom’) 360
Ibn Da‘ud, ‘Ali 152, 154
Ibn Hamdis, ‘Abd al-Jabbar Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr 270–71
Ib
n Hazm, Abu Muhammad ‘Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Sa’id 251–2, 260–61, 298, 313, 448
Kitab al-Fisal fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa’ al-Nihal (The Book of Religious and Philosophical Texts’) 260–61
The Ring of the Dove 251–60, 261
Ibn Jama’a 355
Ibn Jinni 219
Ibn Khafaja, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim 288–9, 301
Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad xiii, 2, 276, 278, 302–4, 355
Kitab al-lbar (The Book of Examples’) 302–3
Muqaddima (The Prolegomena’) 302, 303–4
Ibn Khallikan 146, 267
Ibn Mansur, Ya’qub 277
Ibn Manzur 30
Ibn al-Muqaffa, 74–84
Ibn Muqlah 211
Ibn Nubata, Abu Yahya 219–21
Ibn Qutayba (Abu Muhammad ‘Abd Allah ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba al-Dinawari) 66, 101, 112, 247
Kitab Adab al-Katib (The Book of the Culture of the Scribe’) 101
Kitab al-Shi’r wa-l-Shu’ara 3–4
‘Uyun al-Akhbar (‘Sources of Narratives’) 101–4, 247
Ibn Quzman, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn ‘Isa 278–83
Ibn Sa’dan 172, 174, 177
Ibn Sa’id al-Maghribi, Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Musa 301
Kitab Rayyat al-Mubarrizin (The Book of the Banners of the Champions’) 301
Ibn Shuhayd, Abu ‘Amir 243, 250–51, 261–3, 313
Risalat al-Tawabi wa al-Zawabi (‘Epistle of Inspiring Jinns and Demons’) 261–5
Ibn Sina, Abu ‘Ali alHusayn ibn ‘Abd Allah 194
Hayy ibn Yaqzan (‘Life, Son of Certainty’) 215–16, 290–91
Risalat al-Tair (‘Letter of the Bird’) 116
Salaman wa-Absal (‘Salaman and Absal’) 216
Ibn Sinan, Harim 346
Ibn Tahir, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah 145
Ibn Tashfin, Yusuf 287, 288
Ibn Taymiyya 329
Ibn Tufayl, Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abd al-Malik 194, 215, 290
Hayy ibn Yaqzan 290–97, 313
Ibn Tumart 289–90
Ibn Ukhuwwa xiv
Ibn Washsha, Abu al-Tayyib Muhammad ibn Ahmad 252, 307, 358
Ibn Washshiyya xi, 71, 284
al-Filahah al-Nabatiya (‘Nabataean Agriculture’) 71
Kitab al-Sumum (‘Book of Poisons’) 71–4
Ibn Zafar, Hujjat al-Din Muhammad 32, 78, 430, 437
Inba Nujaba’ al-Abna’ 433
Sulwan al-Muta’ fi ‘Udwan al-Atba’ (‘Resources of a Prince against the Hostility of Subjects’) 430–33, 437
