"They fled to their remote Islands": Al-Ḥakam II and al-Majūs in the Muqtabas of Ibn Ḥayyān. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Christys, Ann
• Is Part Of: Al-Masāq. Volume 28:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 66
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: Historiography / Maritime Studies -- Iberia Vikings – in Iberia -- al-Andalus – historiography -- al-Ḥakam II, caliph of Córdoba -- Ibn Ḥayyān, Abū Marwān, historian -- Courts – Ummayad court; Civilization, Islamic -- Periodicals; Islamic Empire -- Periodicals; Mediterranean Region -- Civilization -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 909.04927
• DOI: 10.1080/09503110.2016.1152804
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-3110

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In the early 970s, groups of Vikings ( al-Majūs in Arabic) appeared off the western coast of al-Andalus. Al-Ḥakam II (r. 961–976) sent a fleet and his army against them. The detail of his response survives in citations from earlier historians in the Muqtabas of Ibn Ḥayyān (987/8–1076). The account of this period of Viking activity that Ibn Ḥayyān preserved is more detailed than descriptions of earlier campaigns in the Arabic chronicles. It is also more remote from the pirates themselves, since Ibn Ḥayyān, or his sources, narrated events as seen from the twin centres of Umayyad power: Córdoba, and the palace of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ. 1