Ḥafṣ b. Albar—the last of the Goths?

D. M. Dunlop

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00106665

Ḥafṣ b. Albar—the last of the Goths?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

D. M. Dunlop

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It is a well-known fact that descendants of the Visigothic kings lived on in Spain under Muslim rule for several centuries. An important early historian of Muslim Spain, Ibn al-Qüṭīyah (died 367/977), owes his name—“son of the Gothic woman”—to descent from the princess Sara, granddaughter of King Witiza, and in his Iftitāḥ gives an account of the destinies of several members of the family. The following pages will, I hope, serve to throw light on one of these and at the same time to clear up a bibliographical problem which has never been properly solved.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 86 , Issue 3-4 , October 1954 , pp. 137 - 151

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00106665 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1954

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^{page 137 note 1} Ta'rīkh iftitāḥ al-Andalus, ed. Gayangos, , Saavedra, and Codera, , Madrid, 1868Google Scholar (reprinted Madrid, 1926), pp. 3–6 = Spanish translation by Ribera, Madrid, 1926, pp. 1–4. This account is followed by Lévi-Provençal, E., Histoire de l'Espagne musulmane, t. i (Cairo, 1944), p. 252Google Scholar.

^{page 137 note 2} Dunlop, D. M., “David Colville, a Successor of Michael Scot,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, xxviii (1951), pp. 38–42CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 137 note 3} “Catalogo dei Codici arabi, persiani e turchi della Biblioteca Ambrosiana,” Biblioteca Italiana, xciv (1839), pp. 22–9Google Scholar. Hammer-Purgstall gives the following notice of the MS. (& 120): “II Salterio di Davide tradotto in mesnevi con versi che rimano l'uno col seguente, da un rinegato Ebreo mauritano, come pare: precede una Dissertazione sui salmi del traduttore Hafss Ibno'1-birr el Kuthi: opera curīosissima, degna di essere specialmente indicata alle Società bibliche: carta europea, carattere mauritano. La copia pare essere fatta nell'anno 1616.”

^{page 137 note 4} Indications apparently in Colville's hand at the beginning and end of MS.

^{page 137 note 5} Historia de los Mozárabes de Espana (Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia, xiii), Madrid, 1897–1903, p. 770, n. 2Google Scholar. Simonet says that he took the notice from the catalogue of Alonso del Castillo (sixteenth century), which existed in the Escorial as MS. H.IV.10 (ibid., p. 724, n. 2). There seems to be no mention of the work in the old bilingual catalogue published by Morata from MS. H.I.5, which he apparently identifies with the catalogue mentioned by Simonet (Morata, N., “Los fondos árabes primitivos de El Escorial,” Al-Andalus, ii, pp. 87–181, especially pp. 101, 180–1Google Scholar).

^{page 138 note 1} Strictly speaking, fol. lb is blank and a number of lines are missing at the beginning of the prose introduction. Since there is a note in Latin, presumably by Colville, on fol. la, we must assume that the original was also acephalous. The Arabic notice given by Simonet is therefore likely to be, not the original heading of the work, but a description, written by someone who knew Arabic well (? Alonso del Castillo, of. n. 5), when the MS. was already defective.

^{page 138 note 2} British Museum, Add. 9060, and Vatican, Ar. 5.

^{page 138 note 3} Meyer-Lübke, W., Romanische Namenstudien, I, Sitzungsberichte d. k. Akad. d. Wissenschaften (phil.-hist. Kl.), B. 149 (Vienna, 1905), p. 8Google Scholar.

^{page 138 note 4} Florez, , España Sagrada, xi, p. 30Google Scholar.

^{page 139 note 1} Arabicè “ahl ad-dahr”, apparently those elsewhere called “ad-dahrīyah”, e.g. in Spain, in the Reply of the Qāḍī Abū'l-Walīd al-Bājī, § 18 (Dunlop, D. M., “A Christian Mission to Muslim Spain in the Eleventh Century,” Al-Andalus, xvii, p. 297)Google Scholar.

^{page 139 note 2} Text “bi'l-lā'timādah”. Such forms occasio nally occur, e.g. al-lātakāfu' “inequality” in Avempace (Escorial MS. 612, fol. 9a). The technical term is “ism gkair muลaṣṣsal”(cf. Goichon, A.-M., Lexique de la langue philosophique d'ibn Sina (Avieenne), Paris, 1938, no. 299Google Scholar).

^{page 140 note 1} MS. “al-barā'”, for which “al-yarā” “—Dr. H. G. Farmer's correction kindly communicated—is certain.

^{page 140 note 2} Here “'ajamī” = Latin, see below.

^{page 140 note 3} Ḥafṣ here speaks of one definite previous version (fa-ṣāra man tarjamahu, etc.).

^{page 141 note 1} Text “ar-rajaz al-mashṭūr”, cf. Wright, , Arabic Grammar, ii, p. 362AGoogle Scholar.

^{page 141 note 2} The contrast is apparently between such verses in the Mozarabic Psalter (see below) as 70 (71), 11: Persequimini et conprehendite eum / quia non est qui eripiat eum, or 150, 1: Laudate dominum in sanctis eius / laudate eum in firmsmento virtutis eius (“rhymed”), and 149, 5: Exultabunt sancti in gloria / et letabuntur in cubilibus suis (“unrhymed”).—These examples are from Gilson, J.PThe Mozarabic Psalter (Henry Bradshaw Society), London 1905Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 3} See below.

^{page 142 note 1} As elsewhere in the prologue, Latin is meant as the “foreign language”.

^{page 143 note 1} Literally, “are different in their names.”

^{page 143 note 2} The line is defective, and the missing words (indicated by dots elsewhere) have been supplied by conjecture.

^{page 143 note 3} Itā' is repetition of the same word in the rhyme in the course of a poem; sinād is improper change in the vowels of the rhyme; and iqwā' (MS. iḥywā') is a similar change, regarded more seriously, cf. Wright, , Arabic Grammar, ii, pp. 356–7Google Scholar.

^{page 145 note 1} MS. apparently “manbitahu idh bā'ahu qad ballada”.

^{page 146 note 1} The half-verse appears to be defective (two measures mustaf'ilun instead of three).

^{page 146 note 2} The last half-verse quoted in n. 2, p. 141, is a senarius.

^{page 147 note 1} Steinschneider, M., Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, Berlin, 1852–1860, col. 2325Google Scholar; Schreiner, M., “Le Kitâb al-Mouhâdara de Moise b. Ezra,” Revue des Études Juives, t. xxi (1890), p. 106Google Scholar; Neubauer, A., “Hafs al-Qouti,” Revue des Études Juives, t. xxx (1895), p. 66Google Scholar.

^{page 148 note 2} Steinschneider, M., Die ardbische Literatur der Juden, Frankfurt, 1902, p. 111Google Scholar.

^{page 148 note 1} Loc. cit.

^{page 148 note 2} Hafs al-Qouti, p. 67.

^{page 148 note 3} The Kitāb al-Muḥāḍarāḥ transcribed in Hebrew letters is here intended.

^{page 148 note 4} Ta'rīkh iftitāḥ. al-Andalus, p. 5: qāḍī al-'ajam.

^{page 148 note 5} Loc. cit.

^{page 149 note 1} For the identity of these names, cf. Simonet, op. cit., p. 12, n. 6.

^{page 149 note 2} E. Lévi-Provençal, op. cit., p. 6.

^{page 149 note 3} Cf. the remarks of Ribera, pp. ix ff. of the introduction to his translation of Ibn al-Qūḍtīyah.

^{page 149 note 4} Boigues, Pons, Historiadores y Geógrafos arábigo-españoles, p. 89Google Scholar, cf. E. Lévi- Provençal, op. cit., p. 11, n. 1.

^{page 149 note 6} Ribera, ibid., p. xxi.

^{page 150 note 1} Epistola, xviii, 5 (Migne, vol. 121, col. 496): “ego qui et fide et gente (var. genere) Hebraeus sum.”

^{page 150 note 2} Epistola, xx (ibid., col. 514): “Sed ut me qui sum ipse cognosoas, et amplius <me> tacendo devites, Virgilium audi: mortem contemnunt laudato vulnere Getes. Necnon et illud: Getes, inquit, quo pergit equo. Unde et illud extat poetae: Hino Dacus premat, inde Getes occurrat. Ego sum, ego sum, quem Alexander vitandum pronuntiavit, Pyrrhus pertimuit, Caesar exhorruit. De nobis quoque et noster Hieronymus dicit: Cornu habet in fronte, longe fuge.” I cannot identify the first two poetical quotations in Vergil. The third Lucan, , Bellum Civile, ii, 54Google Scholar.

^{page 150 note 3} Half al-Qouti, pp. 68–9.

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