Chapter 2 Appropriating Diplomacy: The ʿĀmirid Court

In: Articulating the Ḥijāba: Cultural Patronage and Political Legitimacy in al-Andalus
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Mariam Rosser-Owen
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Then [al-Manṣūr] launched various incursions and struck unexpectedly at the Christians with many devastations, until the furthest countries of the polytheists were subjected to him, entering in this way into peace on his terms; until there came to him the ambassador from the Lord of the Christians (malik al-rūmī) and that of Castile, with gifts, courtesies and rare presents, each one of them begging to make a treaty (aman) with him and trying to obtain his favour.1

Ibn al-Kardabūs 1986, 85 (§§63–64)

The cultivation of a flourishing court was one of the principal means by which the ʿĀmirids articulated their ḥijāba. Through their conduct of diplomatic relations with their Iberian and North African neighbours, the ʿĀmirids perpetuated a caliphal-style court ceremonial, which had an important symbolic role in their official representation. It also provided a function for the traditional Cordoban elite who feared the weakening of their status from the rise of Ṣaqāliba and Berber factions at court. This group was crucial in the legitimisation and maintenance of the ʿĀmirids’ political position and, through their patronage of literature, in both public and private spheres, the regents formed personal bonds of friendship with this elite group. Nevertheless, the ʿĀmirid court has received very little attention. Studies of court life in al-Andalus have focused on the period of the first two caliphs or some of the Taifa courts.2 This neglect reflects the perception in the historiography that the ʿĀmirid period was not one of cultural creativity or innovation.3

This study of the ʿĀmirid court is divided across two chapters: the first examines Andalusi models of court ceremonial, the ʿĀmirids’ conduct of diplomatic relations, including gift-giving and dynastic marriages, and the ways in which they exploited a ceremonial that had become ‘emblematic of Umayyad legitimacy’.4 The following chapter will discuss the patronage of literature, especially poetry, at the ʿĀmirid court. These different aspects reveal some of the ways in which the ʿĀmirids chose to represent themselves, in both public and private spheres. While later chapters focus on ʿĀmirid artistic patronage, an examination of these ceremonial modes of representation will aid our understanding of how this dynasty chose to represent itself visually.

1 The ‘Ceremonial Idiom’5

The Andalusi court was governed by ceremonial. Even the most superficial reading of al-Rāzī’s Annals shows that on a daily basis the life of the caliph and court was conducted according to an elaborate and regimented protocol, which invested each event with the magnificence befitting a great ruler. Much of the time these events were mundane (such as, appointments or promotions in the civil service),6 calendrical or religious (the two ʿīds, or al-Ḥakam’s custom of granting alms to the poor at the start of Ramadan, for example),7 domestic,8 or military.9 These fixtures in the court schedule were punctuated by a constant flow of ambassadors, from al-Andalus’s Christian neighbours in northern Iberia or her Berber clients in the Maghrib, and occasionally from further afield, including the Byzantines and Ottonians.10 Nevertheless, we know comparatively little about how such receptions were organised and orchestrated, since the contemporary sources do not provide much detail: as Lévi-Provençal bemoaned, ‘There is no document [for al-Andalus] equivalent to the precious [Byzantine] Book of Ceremonies’.11 However, in recent decades, scholars have advanced our understanding considerably, through Miquel Barceló’s important study of the structure of ʿīd receptions at Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ;12 Amira Bennison’s discussion of the way in which the whole urban structure of the city of Cordoba was implicated in the reception of envoys from North Africa;13 and Glaire Anderson’s study of the suburban villas (munyas) as an essential part of the landscape employed in the elaboration of an increasingly complicated court ceremonial.14 Discussions of panegyric poetry have also commented on ceremonial, in particular Suzanne Stetkevych’s study of the Andalusi qaṣīda as ‘the symbolic language of ceremony’.15

In relation to the ʿĀmirids, the texts provide only sketchy and occasional information, and unfortunately tell us little specific about ceremonial under al-Manṣūr. There are, however, two promising windows through which to look: al-Rāzī’s Annals for the formative period of his career; and the dīwān of the ʿĀmirid poet laureate, Ibn Darrāj, for the period of al-Manṣūr’s ḥijāba. As we will see below, Ibn Darrāj’s poems also provide important historical evidence for diplomatic relations under al-Manṣūr.

What these sources reveal about ceremonial at the ʿĀmirid court is that it closely and no doubt intentionally followed the model introduced into al-Andalus by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III. The style of court ceremonial that we observe in al-Andalus prevailed in all the major political centres at that time, precisely because it had become ‘one of the insignia of dynastic rule’.16 The Abbasids and Fatimids employed this same ‘ceremonial idiom’ to ‘assert their leadership of the Muslims and express their distinctive claims to legitimacy’.17 As Janina Safran has discussed, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s use of ceremonial was a key element in the articulation of his own claims to be the legitimate caliph: ‘he used ceremony to enact his legitimacy, translating into visual and symbolic form the claims he stated and repeated in the texts of letters, announcements and proclamations’.18 As we shall see, the conspicuous display of ceremonial on state occasions was a tool by which both ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and al-Manṣūr asserted their right to rule.

According to Lévi-Provençal, caliphal ceremonies were ‘increasingly sumptuous and minutely regulated by etiquette the further ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III advanced in age’.19 The emphasis in the texts he cites is on the staged public image in which ʿAbd al-Raḥmān showed himself to his chosen audience; the objective of the ceremonial was to overawe the spectator with splendour and majesty. A good example is provided by the reception of John of Gorze in 956,20 though this embassy from Otto I (r. 936–73) was an unprecedented and unrepeated diplomatic anomaly, and for political reasons the Andalusis may have wanted to put on an extra-splendid show.21 After having been kept waiting in Cordoba for three years, the anticipation on John’s part must have been huge. John’s biographer describes the ‘sumptuous preparations’ that were made ‘in order to make ostentatious the royal magnificence’.22 The street from his lodgings to the Cordoban qaṣr was lined with soldiers displaying their military prowess, which terrified the Christian visitors.23 On their arrival at the palace they were met at the main entrance, which was carpeted with precious cloths and carpets, by ‘the grandees of the court’ who escorted them to the reception chamber.24 Here, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was ‘alone, like a god’; the majlis was so completely covered with sumptuous textiles that ‘the walls and floor seemed the same’. In the midst of even more splendid luxury reclined the caliph. John was given the great honour of kissing the palm of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s hand, ‘a favour which was not allowed to any of his subjects nor to foreigners, … only to eminent persons and those received with the greatest pomp’. The caliph invited John to sit in a chair near him, another sign of great favour.25 The interview began with the presentation of gifts from the German ruler.26 Then the two got down to business.

There is a palpable narrative tension between the apprehensive German envoys, terror-struck by military displays and overbearing luxury, and the caliph, static at the heart of the most potent symbols of his power. In the end, however, John’s reception was informal: he and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān spoke ‘man to man … without the trappings of the court bureaucracy’. All the while, ‘the physical setting, architecture and decoration “did the work”, while ʿAbd al-Raḥmān merely waited for its impact on John as he reclined quietly’.27 It worked: the existence of the Latin source proves that on his return to Otto’s court, John regaled his compatriots with the splendour he had encountered in al-Andalus. Indeed, such was Cordoba’s international reputation that Hroswitha (c. 935–c. 975), a Saxon abbess who had never left Germany, was moved to call the city the ‘ornament of the world’.28

While we should not necessarily see this embassy as typical of ceremonial under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, certain elements are echoed in descriptions of the reception of Byzantine ambassadors,29 as well as al-Ḥakam’s reception in 360/970–1 of Jaʿfar and Yaḥya al-Andalusī.30 The examination of such receptions allows us to identify the significant elements of court ceremony – what Paula Sanders has called ‘the building blocks of ceremonies’31 – and demonstrates how these elements were exploited according to changing circumstances: for example, the power-relations between al-Andalus and Byzantium seem to have required a more intimidating display than ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s meeting with the Ottonian envoy;32 during al-Ḥakam’s caliphate, the ‘most elaborate performances’ were those related to the assertion of Umayyad control in the Maghrib at the expense of the Fatimids.33 The ‘building blocks’, however – the welcoming committee and escort, the military parades and routes lined with soldiers, the presence or absence of other court officials, the splendour of the ceremonial accoutrements, the gestures of salute or homage, the exchange of gifts – remain essentially the same.

The development towards increasingly regulated protocol continued under al-Ḥakam II, as seen in the annual celebrations of ʿīd al-fiṭr and ʿīd al-aḍḥā, which established the standard formula for all court ceremonies.34 These were carefully staged theatrical events, whose objectives were ‘to clearly establish a ritual of power’, and to give ‘a demonstration of the state order’.35 Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ was the theatre, built precisely for this purpose. Ceremonial exposed the machinery of the state to a carefully selected audience: the important officials were present, in strict hierarchical order, which allowed ‘the full range of ranks to be identified and recognised’. The fact that this display took place in the heart of the caliph’s residence ‘is an indication that it was not the subjects (ʿāmma) who were the targets of such ceremonies’. Ceremonial was thus ‘the instrument by which the dominant group makes manifest its own composition’ – to itself.36

In this ceremonial theatre, the ḥājib was stage manager, literally a ‘master of ceremonies’, assisted by a team of ushers.37 Their role was to ensure ‘the strictest attendance/adherence to protocol – who was to be seated or to remain on foot, which positions were assigned to which groups, entrances and exits, and so on’; these ‘were carried out on both sides of the majlis. Thus, each row of dignitaries had one or several men acting as ḥājib’. The act of appointing someone to assist as ḥājib was tantamount to a promotion.38 This is especially interesting when we consider that it is in this capacity that Ibn Abī ʿĀmir is most often encountered in Al-Rāzī’s Annals: he ‘ministers to the caliph’ (ḥajaba al-khalīfa) on the right hand side (ʿan dhāt al-yamīn) in the ʿīd al-fiṭr ceremonies of 972 and 973, and on the left (ʿan dhāt al-yasār) in 975.39 His absence from the roll of ḥujjāb in other years is not an indicator of demotion: during the ʿīd ceremonies of 973–4, for example, Ibn Abī ʿĀmir was serving in the Maghrib as qāḍī al-quḍāt (Chapter 1).40

The public recitation of panegyrics in praise of the ruler was an essential element of court ceremonial, which Stetkevych interprets as another ‘insignia of power’.41 Under al-Manṣūr such recitations dealt an extra humiliation to the Christian kings whom he had already defeated on the battlefield.42 Likewise, the ceremony’s physical setting had an important impact: in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III’s audience with John of Gorze, the whole reception area was covered with rich textiles over which the delegates walked. Another famous example of the ostentatious furnishing of the ceremonial setting is the basin of mercury which ʿAbd al-Raḥmān installed at Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ, in a pavilion with a golden roof; he liked to intimidate his visitors by setting the basin rocking, so that the mercury’s reflections would flash off the ceiling like lightning.43

While ceremonial in al-Andalus bore strong similarities to that of other Islamic courts, Barceló concludes that ‘of the ceremonial practices of the three caliphates of the mid-tenth century, the ritual of the Umayyads of Cordoba was the most archaic in form’.44 His view is based on the issue of the visibility of the caliph: in Abbasid and Fatimid ceremonial, the caliph was becoming increasingly invisible, literally veiled in ways that removed him ever further from his subjects. The physical manifestation of this was the construction of new extra-urban centres such as Samarra, and of new architectural features, such as the īwān, which provided a more impressive setting for caliphal audiences.45 The process was most fully developed at the Fatimid court, where the caliphal throne was concealed by a siṭr, or curtain, which was lifted only once everyone had taken their places in the audience hall, and the caliph was already seated on the throne: this ‘functioned to construct the caliph as a permanent and immobile centre’ of the court/state. Bennison 2007, 75 says of al-Ḥakam II that the ‘caliph entered the hall first and left last, creating an illusion of stasis and stability’.46

In Barceló’s view, ‘had [Andalusi ceremonial] continued to evolve, it [might] have gone down the same road to a progressively more invisible caliph’.47 However, Andalusi ceremonial did continue to evolve, under al-Manṣūr. As seen in Chapter 1, Hishām indeed became invisible, but not for these reasons; in contrast, in the descriptions of ʿĀmirid ceremonial discussed below, al-Manṣūr is conspicuously present, while, as we shall see in Chapter 3, the private aspect of his court took on an unprecedented intimacy.

2 Tools of Diplomacy

2.1 Gifts

A fundamental ‘building block’ of diplomacy was gift exchange. The act of presenting gifts in an embassy was an important part of the ceremonial ritual: the presentation of significant quantities of luxury or exotic objects had the goal of establishing a sympathetic rapport between envoy and ruler before they embarked on the real business of the embassy. The presentation of gifts emblematised a form of client-patron relationship, as it did in the more private context of relations between ruler and favoured courtier:48 tribute was paid in the form of rich gifts, and in the hope of a favourable hearing. Reciprocation of gifts sealed the bargain, while at the same time the acts of receipt and bestowal enacted an acknowledgement of the relative hierarchy of the recipient and benefactor.

Gift giving, or khilʿa (pl. khilaʿ), became a key strategy in the development of the Umayyads’ relations in the Maghrib. More than a ‘simple’ exchange of presents within the terms of a diplomatic agreement, gifts such as the extensive and magnificent offering that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān sent to his main ally among the Berber chiefs of the Maghrib, Mūsā ibn Abī’l-ʿAfiyya (Chapter 6), should be understood within this concept.49 At its most literal, a khilʿa is a garment that has been taken off (khalaʿa) by one person and given to another, but during the Abbasid period the term came to designate any garment bestowed by the ruler upon an official; court officials were thenceforth referred to as the ‘men of robes of honour’ (aṣḥāb al-khilʿa).50 By the tenth century, the phrase khuliʿa ʿalayhi had become shorthand to indicate simply that someone had been appointed to an office of the state bureaucracy. Such an appointment implied a delegation of authority from the caliph, and this investiture took place within the context of solemn ceremonies that were profoundly hierarchical, in which the bestowal of the office was accompanied by gifts, usually an outfit formed of textiles woven in the state ṭirāz factory (Figure 9); these may be inscribed with the ruler’s name and titles, and the quality of the textiles from which the outfit was made would be commensurate with the importance of the office.51 The economic importance of such textiles – which were often woven from silk and embroidered with gold thread – as well as their close association with the royal industry of the ṭirāz, meant that they constituted a high status gift whose bestowal signified great favour.

Under the Andalusi Umayyads, khilʿa became a deliberate policy, inaugurated by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān but fully developed under al-Ḥakam, used to build strategic alliances that gained them power and influence in the Maghrib. As Xavier Ballestín has discussed, during the Umayyads’ war against the Idrīsid leader Ḥasan ibn Qānūn (d. 985), a considerable effort was made to lure away his supporters among the Berber tribal chiefs and to win their loyalty to the Umayyads and the authority of Cordoba.52 These men thus became agents of caliphal authority in the Maghrib, while Ibn Qānūn’s support was gradually eroded. This process was accomplished through the constant distribution of khilʿa, which not only included textiles and turbans, but also jewels, swords, other arms and armour, horses with luxurious caparisons, and coin. Such was the case with the gifts sent by al-Ḥakam in 973 to eight Berber chiefs who had recently foresworn their Fatimid allegiance and acknowledged Umayyad suzerainty: each was presented with a fully-caparisoned horse, a large quantity of dinars, weapons, and expensive textiles.53

The gifts were distributed according to a strict hierarchy: the quantity, combination and quality of the objects given were directly related to the beneficiary’s rank and importance. The moment of bestowal was a public act with a carefully-regulated protocol. The acceptance of these gifts signified that the beneficiary had accepted the authority of Cordoba – they and their men may subsequently be incorporated into the Umayyad army. The bestowal signified that the Umayyads recognised the loyalty of the beneficiary, and that they publicly endorsed his position and authority within the tribal group to which he belonged. Essentially these gifts constituted a bribe: they welcomed the Berbers to the Andalusi fold and implied that more riches could be expected for remaining loyal to Cordoba. A contract was sealed by the presentation of these gifts.

Figure 9
Figure 9

Fragment of a ṭirāz woven in the name of Hishām II, datable 976–1009, silk and gold thread; Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, inv. 298

© Ana Cabrera Lafuente

It was in the capacity of negotiating this fine line of hierarchies and sensitivities among the Umayyads’ would-be allies that Ibn Abī ʿĀmir first excelled himself. Appointed by al-Ḥakam to the post of qāḍī al-quḍāt and inspectorate (amāna) of the Maghrib in 973, he was charged with supervising the distribution of the khilʿa.54 As Ballestín points out, this distribution required a finely-tuned understanding of the authority, dignity, rank and power of each of the Berber chiefs with whom Ibn Abī ʿĀmir did business. Without this understanding, he risked offending them and inciting disputes of protocol and hierarchy. He needed to understand the relationships between the different tribal leaders, and to calculate how to integrate them within Cordoba’s authority without wounding local sensitivities, while at the same time satisfying al-Ḥakam.

The success of Ibn Abī ʿĀmir’s execution of this policy can be judged by the number of delegations and embassies that travelled to Cordoba or to Ghālib’s camp to submit to al-Ḥakam. It was a policy that al-Manṣūr himself continued extremely successfully once he had attained the ḥijāba, not just with his allies in the Maghrib but also in internal relationships within Cordoba or the Umayyad court, and in his wider diplomatic contacts and dealings with the rulers of Iberian Christian kingdoms or envoys from further afield, including Byzantium. As we will see below, al-Manṣūr’s audience with Sancho Abarca ended with the ḥājib distributing khilaʿ to his Christian guests. While the descriptions of Sancho’s embassy might be short on details of what these gifts actually were, this gap is filled somewhat by accounts of al-Manṣūr’s relations with the Berber chiefs of the Maghrib, in particular Zīrī ibn ʿAṭiyya (discussed below). Al-Manṣūr is also known to have bestowed luxurious gifts of textiles on his troops and allies after successful campaigns, and the list of those distributed after the campaign against Santiago de Compostela in 997 is preserved (Chapter 6).

Frustratingly, the historical sources tend only to describe gifts when they are particularly rare or unusual items. While we often know that gifts were exchanged, rarely do we know what they were. The Byzantine embassy to Cordoba in 950, for example, is notable for two magnificent imperial letters whose obvious strangeness caused them to be described and recorded. Though one of them contained an inventory of the gifts they accompanied, this list has not survived.55 Particularly magnificent gifts, especially if from particularly impressive donors, could also be displayed in such a way as to enhance the sense of splendour. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III seems to have been particularly adept at manipulating the physical furnishings of his reception space in order to overawe his visitors. He ostentatiously displayed the gifts received from Byzantine Emperors through the various embassies exchanged between Cordoba and Constantinople: he was said to have hung a ‘magnificent pearl’, presented to him by Leo VI (r. 886–912), in the centre of his reception pavilion, above the tank of mercury which he set moving to overawe visitors with the bright light that would flash off the walls.56 A second rich gift – a fountain basin of green marble, presented by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r. 945–59) to the Andalusi ambassador, Rabīʿ ibn Zayd, during an embassy to Constantinople c. 955 – was likewise installed in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s majlis.57 But he aggrandised the gift yet further by commissioning for it twelve fountain heads from the caliphal Dār al-Ṣināʿa. They were made of gold incrusted with pearls and other precious stones, and represented various animals:

“a lion, flanked on his right by a gazelle, on his left by a crocodile; on the opposite side was [a group consisting of] a dragon, an eagle and an elephant. On the remaining two sides were first a dove together with a falcon and a peacock, and [second] a hen with a cock and a vulture. All these statues consisted of gold encrusted with precious jewels, and water poured from their mouths.”58

This anecdote also documents the existence at Cordoba of an institution called the Dār al-Ṣināʿa, and that it manufactured, at the very least, figural sculpture in precious metals (this institution is discussed in more detail in Chapter 6). While ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s fountain-heads do not survive – probably long ago melted down for their metal, and the jewels reused – bronze fountain heads whose provenance can be linked with Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ do give an idea of what the royal objects would have looked like (Figure 10). Interestingly, the delegation of Byzantine envoys to Cordoba in 949 was taken on a tour of the palace-city, Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ, still being built at that date, which included a visit to the Dār al-Ṣināʿa.59 This indicates the importance of this institution in making luxury objects that could be given away as khilaʿ to the Umayyads’ clients and allies. Surely the ambassadors would have been given some of its products to take away with them: since we know from the gift to Mūsā ibn Abī’l-ʿAfiyya that the Cordoban ivories were in production by the 930s, one likely possibility is that these gifts included ivory caskets, products of a new industry that could conceivably have been modelled on the use of ivory in Byzantium. It has even been suggested that Byzantine ivory caskets with entirely vegetal decoration reflect an awareness of the designs of the Cordoban ivories or of other Umayyad objects that might have come to Constantinople as gifts on such occasions.60

Figure 10
Figure 10

Fountain head in the form of a deer, bronze, mid-tenth century, H 61.6 cm; Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico, Cordoba, inv. CE000500

© Conjunto Arqueológico Madinat al-Zahra

2.2 Dynastic Marriages

One of the key ‘diplomatic tools’ that al-Manṣūr employed in his relations with the Iberian Christian kingdoms was that of dynastic marriage – in particular, his marriage to the daughter of Sancho Garcès II of Navarra, who converted to Islam and was known as ʿAbda.61 Though her conversion was not necessary from an Islamic point of view, she is said by the historian Ibn al-Khaṭīb to have become ‘a good Muslim; she was of all al-Manṣūr’s wives the staunchest in faith and of most gentle birth’.62 Their son, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, was nicknamed ‘Sanchuelo’ after his Christian grandfather. As Simon Barton observed, al-Manṣūr adopted a canny ‘matrimonial policy’, which early on in his career served to ‘consolidate and further his political influence by entering into advantageous marriage alliances with other powerful Muslim aristocratic families’ – referring to his advancement by his possible marriage to a member of the Banū Bartal and then by his match with Asmāʾ, daughter of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III’s freedman, Ghālib (Chapter 1).63 Once he held the reins of power, however, it is striking that he ‘preferred to distance himself from the local Muslim aristocracy and underline his peninsular hegemony’, by marrying the daughter of one of Iberia’s most powerful Christian rulers.

We will return in a moment to the details of al-Manṣūr’s marriages, but it is important to note that alliances with the Christian monarchies of Iberia, through marriage or concubinage, was a tactic imitated from the Umayyad amirs of al-Andalus. All amirs since the conquest are said to have taken concubines from among the local population, and indeed to have preferred to father heirs from these concubines rather than from marriages to freeborn Arab women. Thus was born the oft-repeated axiom, following Ibn Ḥazm, that ‘every one of [the amirs] has been fair haired, taking after their mothers, so that this has become a hereditary trait with them’.64 Only ʿAbd Allāh, the grandfather of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, took a Christian noblewoman as a wife: this was Onneca/Oñega, known to Muslim writers as Durr (Pearl), the widow of Aznar Sánchez of the Arista family; their son Muḥammad fathered ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III. Muḥammad’s first cousin, Toda, married Sancho Garcès I of Pamplona (r. 905–25), and after his death she ruled as queen regent of Navarra, for more or less the same period of time as her nephew’s caliphate.65

What Barton styled ‘interfaith marriage’ was a deliberate policy conducted by the Muslims in al-Andalus for a complex series of factors. After the conquest, it served to consolidate their power in Iberia and bound conquerors and conquered more closely together; it also ‘represented a means through which much of the landed wealth of the Visigothic magnate class could legitimately be channelled into Muslim ownership’.66 Over the centuries, such alliances became a tool of diplomacy, ‘a means to help stabilise relations with the sometimes fractious Christian states to the north’. For the Christians, it was ‘a means to achieve both peace and dynastic survival’. Barton cites the model proposed by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, whereby ‘a continuous transition exists from war to exchange, and from exchange to intermarriage, and the exchange of brides is merely the conclusion to an uninterrupted process of reciprocal gifts, which effects the transition from hostility to alliance, from anxiety to confidence, and from fear to friendship’.67 As such we might conceptualise dynastic marriages within the scheme of diplomatic gift exchange, discussed above. At the same time, though, this was an ‘aggressive’ strategy, sexual domination as a form of power underlining the Muslim hegemony of the Peninsula.

This was not the exclusive preserve of amirs: Barton notes that several Andalusi noble families living on the frontier, in particular the Banū Qasī in the Ebro Valley, also engaged in this policy. But, as in other aspects of al-Manṣūr’s administration, the difference in scale is notable here. He did not marry the daughter of just any Christian nobleman, but one of the most powerful Christian rulers on the Peninsula. Indeed Sancho Garcès II of Pamplona was Toda’s grandson, which means that, on marrying his daughter, al-Manṣūr was also marrying into this complex kinship group, binding himself through marriage ties to the caliphal family as well as to the kingdom of Navarra. This indeed ‘underline[d] his peninsular hegemony’, both within the borders of al-Andalus and without, as Barton observed.

We do not know exactly when al-Manṣūr’s marriage to ʿAbda took place, but their son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ‘Sanchuelo’ was born around 982, since we know that he was appointed to the office of wazīr in 991, when he was only nine years old. Echevarría speculates that the marriage alliance might have taken place after the Christian surrender in the campaign against a coalition of the ‘Three Nations’ – Navarra, Castile and Girona.68 The marriage thus took place in the period soon after the adoption of al-Manṣūr’s laqab, when according to Ibn ʿIdhārī he was ‘supreme master of all the affairs of the state and of the [Umayyad] dynasty’.69 ʿAbda herself could therefore be seen as an element in the articulation of al-Manṣūr’s ḥijāba, in particular if he was aware of her kinship connection to the caliphs (which he surely was). The marriage also presupposes a long-standing treaty between Cordoba and Pamplona, which was celebrated in Sancho II’s splendid visit to Cordoba in 992, discussed below.

Historians have also attributed to al-Manṣūr a second marriage to a Christian noblewoman, Teresa Bermúdez, daughter of king Bermudo II of León (r. 982–99) and sister to Alfonso V (r. 999–1032). This interprets an unreliable and polemical Christian source – the Chronicle of the Kings of León composed by Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo between 1121 and 1132, and followed by many later Christian writers – which talks of Alfonso giving Teresa away to ‘a certain pagan king (rex) of Toledo for the sake of peace’.70 Reinhardt Dozy interpreted this to mean al-Manṣūr, since Ibn Khaldūn, writing centuries later, had recorded that al-Manṣūr married a daughter of Bermudo II in 993. Nevertheless, the impossibility of this marriage was convincingly demonstrated by Cotarelo in 1903, who argued that since Teresa’s parents only married in 992, she would have been a babe-in-arms at that date, and less than 10 years old if she married al-Manṣūr at some later point before his death in 1002.71 It seems most likely that Ibn Khaldūn was confusing the marriage with that of ʿAbda, though Barton revisited this anecdote and cautioned that ‘it is unlikely to be a complete fiction’. Indeed, he suggests that it could reasonably have been one of al-Manṣūr’s sons to whom Teresa Bermúdez was betrothed, and of the two perhaps it is most likely to have been ʿAbd al-Malik, who treated with León in 1003 and 1004 – this was the context in which the Braga pyxis (Figures 11, 15) was likely presented as a diplomatic gift to Menendo González, Alfonso’s regent (discussed below). Bearing Lévi-Strauss’s model in mind, could Teresa’s hand have been part of a wider exchange of gifts, marking a wish for a lasting peace across the frontiers of the Peninsula? After ʿAbd al-Malik’s death in 1008, or during the Fitna that followed soon after, she would have returned to León, as the sources say she did, and entered a convent, where she died in 1039. If there is truth in the Teresa Bermúdez story, it also shows that one or other of al-Manṣūr’s sons attempted to continue his wise policy of using dynastic marriage alliances to consolidate peace.

As a footnote to this discussion, Echevarría notes that ‘it is possible’ that Onega, sister of Sancho García and daughter of García Fernández of Castile, was given to al-Manṣūr as a wife or concubine in 995, after their father’s downfall at the ḥājib’s hands – but she gives no further details.72 If so, it means that al-Manṣūr and his sons had marriage or concubinage ties with all the important Christian kingdoms and counties of the Iberian Peninsula – Navarra, León and Castile. Their dominance of the Peninsula was sexual as well as political.

3 ʿĀmirid Diplomatic Relations

Whereas the arrival of foreign embassies at ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III’s court has been seen as a ‘true sign of [al-Andalus’s] power and prestige’,73 the same subject in relation to the ʿĀmirid court has, surprisingly, been entirely neglected. This has much to do with the few secondary sources that have examined Andalusi diplomatic relations. The major studies – Aleksandr Vasiliev on Byzantine relations with the Arabs, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān El-Hajji on Andalusi diplomacy – do not consider diplomatic events in Iberia after the mid-tenth century. El-Hajji ties his study to the Umayyad dynasty, and therefore does not consider the periods before the arrival of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I in 755, or after the death of al-Ḥakam in 976; he even specifically states that the political dominance of al-Manṣūr during Hishām’s caliphate ‘enables us to suggest that the real Umayyad period ended with the death of al-Ḥakam’.74 But for the twenty-six years of al-Manṣūr’s ḥijāba, al-Andalus within its borders was at its most peaceful and prosperous, conditions in which it would be surprising to encounter an absence of diplomatic activity. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that such activity occurred, though some of this evidence only came to light after Maḥmūd ʿAlī Makkī’s 1961 edition of Ibn Darrāj’s dīwān, and Margarita La Chica Garrido’s translation into Spanish of the panegyric poems in 1979. We can only speculate how many more foreign embassies to al-Manṣūr’s court were not celebrated in song, or indeed, how many more were so celebrated, only to have disappeared from the written record over the past millennium.

The passage from Ibn al-Kardabūs quoted at the head of this chapter implies that all the kings of the known world were eager to engage in peaceful relations with al-Manṣūr. The discussion here will focus on relations with Christian Iberia and the Maghrib, but there is some indication that ambassadors from Byzantium were also received in Cordoba during ʿAbd al-Malik’s administration. Al-Manṣūr’s policy towards Iberia’s Christian kingdoms continued ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III’s, in the sense of lending military support when he thought the alliance profitable to al-Andalus. Dozy mentions, for example, the aid sought by the rulers of León in 981, when Ramiro III, deposed by his cousin Bermudo II, ‘found himself driven, in order to avoid total defeat, to crave assistance from Almanzor, and to acknowledge him as over-lord’. When Ramiro died in 984, Bermudo ‘foresaw that unless he stooped to follow Ramiro’s example, he would have great difficulty in bringing the recalcitrant [Leonese] nobles to their knees’. He appealed to al-Manṣūr and ‘the Minister espoused his cause and placed a considerable Moorish force at his disposal’.75

In the dīwān of Ibn Darrāj, we find mention of embassies to Cordoba for which there is no other historical evidence. The sources which transmitted Ibn Darrāj’s poems also preserved their titles, which briefly comment on the events for which the poems were written; sometimes they also give the date. For example, the introduction to poem 112 reads, ‘On the occasion of the reception which al-Manṣūr gave to Sancho, son of García Fernández, when he came to Cordoba at the head of a delegation in the year 382/993’.76 We can thus identify four poems that record the reception by al-Manṣūr of Christian ambassadors: 107 (Sancho II Abarca, king of Navarra, in 992); 109 (Count Ibn Gómez, c. 995); 112 (Sancho Garcès, son of the ruler of Castile, in 992–993); and 117 (Gonzalo Sánchez, son of the king of Navarra, c. 993).77

It is significant that, in all these cases, the representative of each Christian kingdom was the ruler himself or his heir. While the first two caliphs seem to have received annual embassies from their Christian clients and allies, before al-Manṣūr’s ḥijāba, the occasions on which a Christian ruler himself (or herself) had visited Cordoba had been few, and were justified in the primary sources by the rulers’ need to seek help from the caliph. The first of these was initiated by the appeal of the Navarrese queen regent, Toda, that her nephew ʿAbd al-Rahman III assist her grandson, Sancho I of León, to regain his throne.78 Sancho, known uncharitably to history as ‘the Fat’, had been deposed in 957, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān agreed to lend the expertise of his own physician, the Jewish doctor Hasdai ibn Shaprut, to cure him of his obesity. After three years of treatment in Cordoba, Sancho successfully regained the throne in 960. Ironically, Ordoño IV, the ruler who had deposed Sancho and was then himself deposed, likewise sought asylum in al-Andalus, now under the caliphate of al-Ḥakam.79 In both cases, the caliph offered assistance, surely conscious of the political advantage of a grateful king on the Leonese throne; and while al-Andalus clearly held the upper hand, as the dominant power on the Peninsula, at a certain level these relations could be seen as being conducted between equals, since all concerned were Iberian royalty.

That al-Manṣūr also received rulers, rather than envoys, at his court might be viewed as an imitation of this model, but the intensification of this policy is significant: al-Manṣūr received more Christian rulers in his home than any of his predecessors, and it was always in the context of celebrating military victory. The objective of all these embassies seems to have been to ‘reaffirm peace with al-Manṣūr and render [him] their subjugation’.80 How much more humiliating for al-Manṣūr’s Christian visitors: they had already been defeated in battle, and were now expected to abase themselves in front of the assembled court and people of al-Andalus. Furthermore, their humiliation was then publicly celebrated in the poems written by Ibn Darrāj for the occasion. Again, we can see correspondences between al-Manṣūr and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān: as Lévi- Provençal wrote, ‘Christian ambassadors during the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III are always presented as beggars’.81 The metaphorical language of Ibn Darrāj’s poems also depicts the Christians ambassadors to al-Manṣūr as supplicants, as in the passage quoted at the start of this chapter.

In Stetkevych’s view of the ‘iconography of power’, this kind of ceremony ‘ritually reenacts’ the surrender of the enemy on the battlefield. This is also reflected in the emphasis which panegyric places on the ḥājib’s power over life and death: the apprehension on the part of his Christian visitors over whether they will get out of Cordoba alive reenacts al-Manṣūr’s sparing of their life on the battlefield. Thus, the ruler ‘seated in majesty, flanked by his elite, ordering his (political) creation’ embodies social order, while the ceremony represents the ‘reaffirmation of the social, political and religious hierarchy, the recreation of order after the preceding chaos … In ceremonial terms, it plays the role of the cosmic ritual combat between good and evil’.82

Of the four poems by Ibn Darrāj that record the reception of Christian rulers, Sancho Abarca’s embassy (poem 107) will be discussed in detail below; that of his son, Gonzalo Sánchez (poem 117) can be related to his father’s visit, since its objective is most likely to have been to confirm what had been agreed a year earlier.83 For the visits alluded to in the other two poems, we must rely on what we know of their historical context.

Ibn Darrāj’s poem 112 celebrates the uprising which Sancho García began against his father, García Fernández, Count of Castile, in 994, in which he was likely aided by forces provided by al-Manṣūr.84 García Fernández was, of all Iberia’s Christians, the most tenacious in his resistance to the ḥājib, and at this period al-Manṣūr was seeking retribution against him for assisting a conspiracy in which his own son, ʿAbd Allāh, had been embroiled (Chapter 1). The Count was captured by the Muslims in May 995 and died of his wounds a few days later, an incident celebrated in song by Ṣāʿid al-Baghdādī, one of al-Manṣūr’s court poets (Chapter 8). It is likely that his son, Sancho, planned his uprising with al-Manṣūr during this time in Cordoba, and Ibn Darrāj’s poem even talks of Sancho ‘putting in al-Manṣūr’s hands … the reins of his destiny’.85 Perhaps his sister, Oñega, was promised in return.

Even so, relations with Castile under Sancho García (r. 995–1017, as third Count of Castile) continued the turbulent trajectory they had had under his father. In 1000, Sancho broke off his alliance with al-Manṣūr and joined in the coalition with García Sánchez II of Pamplona, which was defeated by the Muslims.86 Al-Manṣūr was again campaigning against Sancho when he died in 1002. In 1003, Sancho signed a treaty with ʿAbd al-Malik, and allied with him against Aragón. In ʿAbd al-Malik’s victory over Clunia – celebrated by his commissioning the Pamplona casket (Figures 120–127) – Sancho became its master. In 1004, Sancho requested right of tutelage over Alfonso V of León; this was the case for which ʿAbd al-Malik was appointed ‘international arbitrator’, deciding in favour of Menendo González of Galicia, to whom the Braga pyxis may have been given as a diplomatic gift (see below). In 1007, ʿAbd al-Malik was again at war with Sancho, and recovered Clunia from him, the battle for which he took the laqab al-Muẓaffar.

Turning to the visit of Ibn Gómez c. 995, poem 109 in Ibn Darrāj’s dīwān begins with the introduction, ‘On the occasion of the visit which the Count Ibn Gómez made to Cordoba, after the defeat which al-Manṣūr inflicted on him’.87 This member of the Banū Gómez, who governed a small county in León, is likely to have been García, the ‘opportunistic and unscrupulous’ son of Gómez Díaz, son-in-law of Fernán González, who had sent an embassy to al-Ḥakam in 973.88 Friendly relations with al-Andalus seem to have continued under his successor until about 995, when Lévi-Provençal dates a campaign conducted by al-Manṣūr against the Banū Gómez:89 this, presumably, is the defeat mentioned in the introduction to the poem. The reason for this embassy was therefore probably to celebrate the Christian’s defeat on the battlefield by glorifying al-Manṣūr in his own home. This would also make the ‘awesome military parade’ described in the poem all the more symbolic.90 Though Ibn Darrāj describes the scene in outline, ‘his images are vivid, full of colour’: paraphrasing verses 19 to 39, he mentions ‘enormous banners depicting gigantic eagles and vultures, straight files of horses and lances, thousands of soldiers hailing the great Muslim general with roars which made the ground tremble, Berber horsemen with their turbans and shining helmets and veils which covered their faces’.91 Ibn Gómez advances ‘with slow and trembling steps’ until he perceives al-Manṣūr ‘at the heart of … the ranks of his veteran soldiers’, and ‘he bowed to kiss the ground, before advancing again’.

Perhaps the most important Christian embassy to be received in Cordoba by al-Manṣūr – and the one we know the most about, thanks to its treatment by Ibn al-Khaṭīb – was that of his father-in-law, Sancho II Abarca, king of Navarra (r. 970–995). Sancho was the most powerful of the Christian rulers, though he was wise enough to pursue a pacific policy towards al-Andalus, and a truce throughout the 980s had been sealed by the marriage of al-Manṣūr to Sancho’s daughter, ʿAbda. However, in 990 Sancho assisted García Fernández with incursions into Muslim territory, and in 992 al-Manṣūr began a retributive campaign against Pamplona. Sancho surrendered, and apparently asked ‘that he be allowed to be received in Cordoba at the head of an embassy, with the aim of convincing [al-Manṣūr] of the sincerity of his submission’.92 The king’s official visit took place on 3 Rajab 382/4 September 992 and, in addition to Ibn Darrāj’s poem 107, the reception is described by Ibn al-Khaṭīb. Sources that discuss al-Manṣūr’s diplomatic activity are so rare that it is worth citing this precious passage in full:93

“Then al-Manṣūr in person with his son [ʿAbd al-Malik?] and his men joined battle against Shānjah [hereafter Sancho], the king of the Christians, until he surrendered, seeking [al-Manṣūr’s] pardon, and [Sancho] asked permission to visit [al-Manṣūr] in person and [al-Manṣūr] permitted it. And [al-Manṣūr] was happy as never before at his visit. He went ahead with preparing for [Sancho’s] visit, and he summoned the top-ranking men. [Sancho] arrived three days after the start of Rajab of the year 382, and al-Manṣūr made his troops and volunteers (al-muṭṭawwiʿ) ride to meet [Sancho] at his entrance to Qaṣr al-Zāhira. And this day was one of the world’s famous days, so that the unbeliever [i.e. Sancho] was bedazzled. He beheld the wealth of the Muslims and the fame (nabāha) of their weapons and the beauty of their clothes and the multitude of their number, of which he had no idea that the world could encompass nor the days gather together nor the storehouses shelter. Al-Manṣūr’s son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān met him, (who was) [Sancho’s] grandson by his daughter – the story of which we have already mentioned – and the Sultan’s wuzarāʾ were surrounding him [Sanchuelo?], together with the prominent military leaders (quwwād) and the important officials (akābir) from among the civil service (ahl al-khidma) and the mamālīk [wearing] the most beautiful outfits and the most perfectly tied cloth (taʿbiya). Then when [Sancho’s] eyes fell on the boy [i.e. his grandson], he dismounted, and [Sancho] kissed his [grandson’s] foot and [Sanchuelo] ordered him to remount, and arrived with him to his father. [Sancho] went barefoot between two rows of iron [i.e. files of armed soldiers?], flanked along the way for miles with nothing but fine coats of mail and golden breastplates. The strong men wore [pieces on] their shanks and forearms, and they had put on their full armour and carried their shields. Behind them were ranks of archers with golden belts, girdled around their waists. The Christian king (al-malik al-rūmī) was rolling his eyes, his heart overwhelmed with fear, until he arrived at al-Manṣūr’s majlis at the seventh hour of daylight. Al-Manṣūr had [already] seated himself on the most splendid of seats, and the most elevated of them, his throne (sarīr) surrounded by the wuzarāʾ and the best men of the state (aʿāẓim rijāl al-dawla), and the servants and the Ṣaqāliba were lined up in two rows from the entrance (bāb) to the majlis as far as the entrance (bāb) to the Qaṣr. When [Sancho’s] eyes fell on al-Manṣūr ibn Abī ʿĀmir, he threw himself to the ground, kissing [it] repeatedly as he approached him, until he kissed his feet and hands. Al-Manṣūr gave a command and a gilded chair (kursī mudhahhab) was brought for [Sancho], on which he sat. [Al-Manṣūr] made a sign and those present left. Privately he fulfilled his wishes, and the unbeliever (ʿilj) responded gratefully. Then [al-Manṣūr] came out while [Sancho] followed him, clad in royal garments (khilaʿ al-sulṭāniyya), in the company of mounts and dignitaries. And the majlis only came to a closure by nightfall.”

In this passage we can recognise those ‘building blocks’ of caliphal ceremonial that were discussed above. Also present are certain narrative elements, which recur in descriptions of the receptions of John of Gorze, Ordoño IV, and García Gómez: the military parade (burūz) and extensive description of the soldiers’ armour; the presence of the most important state officials; dismounting at a designated point; the long and intimidating walk past the double ranks of soldiers who line the route from beginning to end, at the culmination of which the ruler is enthroned; the sarīr on which al-Manṣūr sits and the kursī which Sancho is offered as a sign of great favour; the gestures of salute – kissing the feet and hands of both al-Manṣūr and Sanchuelo, then probably around ten years old but who in al-Andalus obviously had superior status to his grandfather; the private interview; the bestowal of robes of honour on the visitors. What is sadly missing from this picture is a description of the ceremonial furniture and presentation of gifts. What is new, however, is the note that al-Manṣūr continued to ‘hold court’ with his officials and other colleagues until nightfall. Other such majālis, though without this ceremonial prelude, will be discussed in Chapter 3.

Some of these ceremonial and narrative aspects recur in the poem written by Ibn Darrāj in honour of this event (poem 107).94 Makkī comments that this poem contains ‘phrases eulogising the Navarrese king, his noble genealogy and his prestige among the Christian kings’.95 These in fact serve to eulogise al-Manṣūr all the more: ‘the great lord of polytheism, who has come in all humility, submitting to your arbitration’ (l.9); now ‘he wears … the yoke of slavery’ (l.18). The narrative movement of the poem, though rendered somewhat in slow motion by the continuous interjections of praise for al-Manṣūr, resembles that of Ibn al-Khaṭīb’s description: ‘For [Sancho] came with the fetters of fear shortening his step, yet lengthening it while he advanced in the bond of abasement … / Awe of the army frightened him so that he drew back in terror …’ (ll.34 and 36).96 Ibn Darrāj next ‘offers us a vivid description of the spectacular military parades organised in Sancho’s honour, though they give more signs of intimidation and threat than of hospitality’ (ll.40–42).97 Sancho catches sight of al-Manṣūr – just as he does in the prose passage – but here the moment is like a cloud moving away from the midday sun (l.43). The good news is given that Sancho’s life is spared (as is also the case with García Gómez in poem 109), which reminds us that al-Manṣūr does indeed have power over the life and death of his Christian visitors; in return, Sancho ‘kissed a hand sealed with mercy’ (l.47). The poem ends with final praises and congratulations for al-Manṣūr.

4 Diplomatic Exchange with the Maghrib

If the descriptions of Sancho’s embassy were short on details of gift exchange, this gap is filled somewhat by accounts of al-Manṣūr’s relations with the Berber chief, Zīrī ibn ʿAṭiyya al-Maghrāwī. There is a certain degree of confusion in the sources about the dates of Zīrī’s visit to Cordoba and whether or not he paid a second visit a few years later, but this has now been resolved by Xavier Ballestín with recourse to the anonymous Kitāb al-Mafākhir al-Barbar (c. 1312), which allows for a more detailed understanding of the Maghribi historical context.98 Ballestín concludes that Zīrī came to Cordoba only once, before 380/990–1, and that the embassy bringing the spectacular gift to celebrate Zīrī’s victory over the Fatimid turncoat, Abū’l-Bahār ibn Zīrī, arrived in 384/994.

As we saw in Chapter 1, Zīrī had become the lord of the Maghrāwa tribal group on the death of his brother in 988, and thus became al-Manṣūr’s most important Berber ally. Al-Manṣūr invited him to Cordoba and Zīrī ‘responded favourably to the request’. As Ballestín interprets it, asking Zīrī to report to Cordoba in person allowed al-Manṣūr ‘to check his obedience’ as well as to publicly incorporate him within the Umayyad fold by exercising the policy of khilʿa.99 The reception is described in the Kitāb al-Mafākhir and is closely comparable to the reception of Sancho Abarca, just described. Al-Manṣūr

“received him with the army in formation, fully equipped [caparisoned] and that day acquired fame for its majesty/splendour. [Al-Manṣūr] put him up in the munya of Jaʿfar [ibn ʿAlī] in Quth Rash,100 and he poured numerous emoluments on him, he appointed him to the dignity of wazīr, he invited him to his own palace, and applied himself carefully to heaping benefits upon him: he granted him the most valuable presents, including numerous horses and arms, and to all of this he added an extraordinary quantity of money, precious textiles of beautiful manufacture and in great abundance, and excellent gifts. He showed diligence in letting him return to his country, since in fact he considered [Zīrī] to be his enemy, and he conscripted into the register of the professional soldiers of the regular army (dīwān) the majority of the men who had come with him …”

Appointing Zīrī to the office of vizier was the highest possible dignity that could be conferred within the Umayyad state: this was the same status that was held by al-Sulamī, the Umayyad governor of the Maghrib (Chapter 1), as well of course as the host of ministers and high functionaries who would have been part of Zīrī’s welcoming committee. This appointment also supposes a considerable monthly salary,101 and the khilʿa he received would have been commensurate to his new rank. The Kitāb al-Mafākhir speaks of horses, arms, expensive clothing and money,102 the same ensemble of presents that al-Ḥakam gave to the Idrīsid supporters he was attempting to lure away from Ḥasan ibn Qannūn. A comparable ceremonial visit was that of Jaʿfar and Yaḥya al-Andalusī, the two brothers responsible for killing the Fatimid governor of Ifrīqiya, Zīrī ibn Manād; they visited Cordoba in 970–1, and were fêted by the caliph and his court. They were likewise appointed viziers, and accommodated in one of Cordoba’s munyas – the Munyat Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.103 Al-Manṣūr thus indicates to Zīrī that his rank and hierarchy is at the same level as the two men who had supported al-Ḥakam in the war against Ḥasan ibn Qānūn, and associates him with the running of affairs of state.

But the appointment also implied Zīrī’s inferiority to al-Manṣūr: in Ibn Khaldūn’s account, Zīrī disparages ‘this title of minister which lowers my dignity’.104 Zīrī obviously considered his treatment to be supremely patronising, as dramatically expressed when he returned home and declared ‘ana amīr ibn amīr’ – underlining that he was a ruler by his own authority, and had no need of ministerial posts from Cordoba. One of his first acts on returning to the Maghrib was to put on his turban, which Ballestín calls ‘a metonym for the Berbers themselves’. He suggests that Zīrī may have received a qalansuwa as a mark of his rank of vizier, and thus putting his turban back on symbolically reestablished his own authority over the Maghrib.105 Zīrī also refers obliquely to the gifts that he had presented to al-Manṣūr on this occasion, while he clearly did not have a high opinion of the gifts he had received in return: ‘This man has made me the object of his parsimony, when I presented to him a fortune of incalculable riches and afterwards he wanted to deceive me that what he had given in return corresponded to generosity …’.106 Thus the historiographers foreshadow the difficulties to come in the relationship between Zīrī and al-Manṣūr, through Zīrī’s bitter rejection of al-Manṣūr’s khilʿa. Even so, a short while later, after the death of al-Sulamī, Zīrī accepted the appointment to be Umayyad governor of the Maghrib, the first time a Berber had been appointed to this office – no doubt he saw this as being more in keeping with his natural rank. Thereafter, he campaigned energetically on the Umayyads’ behalf, greatly extending their sphere of influence.

The gifts from Zīrī that arrived in Cordoba in 994 celebrated a great victory that he had won on the Umayyads’ behalf about a year before. This was Zīrī’s castigation of the treachery of Abū’l-Bahār ibn Zīrī ibn Manād, uncle of Manṣūr ibn Buluqqīn, the Fatimid viceroy in Ifrīqiya. Having briefly come over to the Umayyad side, Abū’l-Bahār was lured back to the Fatimids; he was splendidly received by Manṣūr ibn Buluqqīn and invested as governor of Tahart in 382/992–3.107 Al-Manṣūr ibn Abī ʿĀmir sent Zīrī against him, in punishment for his betrayal of the Umayyad khilʿa. Abū’l-Bahār fled to Qayrawan in Shaʿban 383/October 993, and Zīrī occupied his lands, extending the Umayyad hinterland well into modern-day Algeria. But this conquest also extended Zīrī’s own authority and dominion, and he was now acknowledged as the undisputed lord of the Zanāta.108 Zīrī wrote to al-Manṣūr announcing his victory, which was proclaimed from the minbars of all the mosques in al-Andalus, and he confirmed Zīrī in possession of all the Umayyad lands of the Maghrib al-Aqṣāʾ. Zīrī established himself in Fez, and his authority – hence al-Manṣūr’s – now stretched from the Atlantic coast as far east as the Zab mountains.109

The announcement of victory was followed up with a massive gift representing the luxury commodities for which the lands in North and West Africa that Zīrī now governed in the Umayyads’ name were renowned. The arrival must have been spectacular, since no fewer than three sources transmit the lists of what the gift contained, though the details do vary slightly between them.110 The Kitāb al-Mafākhir tells us that the gift ‘was staggered and arrived successively, in perfect order and arrangement’. First came the exotic and extraordinary animals: 200 horses, of which 50 were caparisoned and purebloods of extraordinary beauty; 50 camels, fast runners of the mahara type; a bird that spoke eloquently in a marvellous voice and had an extraordinary appearance; a musk ox; civet cats; a tiger of marvellous physique and enormous body; varieties of fauna of the desert, such as lamt antilope and other species; and, the pièce de résistance, a giraffe – though the Kitāb al-Mafākhir is the only text to contain the detail that the giraffe had died en route, and needed to be stuffed before its arrival in Cordoba, where ‘it caused great amazement when people saw it’. Next came the weapons: shields made with lamt skin, lances of Indian (hindawi) steel, possibly bows; then clothing ‘made from very fine wool’, and food, including a thousand crates of dates of which Ibn Abī Zarʿ says each was as big as a cucumber. Al-Manṣūr ‘was very satisfied with what Zīrī had gifted to him and he recompensed [him] with a generosity that surpassed what [would have] corresponded to the mere reciprocation of the gifts received’. No indication is given of what these return gifts actually were, but since al-Manṣūr was the superior in the hierarchy, his gifts needed to be better.

What is not mentioned in any of the historical passages relating Zīrī’s gift is ivory. The information is transmitted in Pascual de Gayangos’ translation of al-Maqqarī’s Nafh al-Tib that this gift also included ‘8,000 pounds weight of elephant tusks’, min nāb al-fīl in Arabic.111 This nugget has become almost legendary among art historians of the Andalusi carved ivories, myself included,112 because it purports to give documentary support to the hypothesis that not only did al-Andalus rely on her North African clients for the supply of ivory, but also that ivory was abundantly available at the end of the tenth century. Even if al-Maqqarī had overestimated the quantity, this would represent the arrival in al-Andalus of tens of elephant tusks, which could have stimulated the revival of the ivory-carving industry under ʿĀmirid patronage – since only five years later, in 999, a pyxis was made for Sanchuelo (Figures 139–141) after an apparent lapse of some thirty years (since the manufacture of the Ziyad pyxis, Figure 12, dated 969), if we judge by the surviving objects.

Gayangos’s commentary cites Ibn Abī Zarʿ and Ibn Khaldūn as the sources for al-Maqqarī’s description of Zīrī’s gift, but he did not specify which manuscript this information came from. Worryingly, neither of these sources mentions ivory in their lists of the gifts sent from Zīrī to al-Manṣūr, nor does the slightly longer, more detailed account of the gift preserved in the Kitāb al-Mafākhir; nor is there mention of ivory in Dozy’s edition of al-Maqqarī’s Arabic text.113 None of these sources mentions the ‘150 ostrich feathers’ that are also included in Gayangos’s translation of this gift list. The fact that Gayangos quoted the Arabic phrase for ivory strongly suggests that he was working from an Arabic source, perhaps a variant manuscript of al-Maqqarī that has not been subsequently edited, but he does not specify the manuscripts he worked from or their institutional locations.114 The authenticity of the information should not be dismissed out of hand, although Gayangos’s translation is notorious for its inaccuracy and occasional creativity.115 At the moment it unfortunately appears that the information that Zīrī’s gift to al-Manṣūr included raw ivory was interpolated – indeed, possibly invented – by Gayangos. It seems we can no longer rely on this primary source for verification of the import of substantial quantities of raw ivory by this route. Nevertheless, as we will discuss in Chapter 6, the ʿĀmirids’ North African clients are the likely source for the supply of ivory, which, as we can see from the surviving objects, was indeed abundantly available.

Figure 11
Figure 11

Pyxis, datable 1004–8, ivory, chalice and paten, c. 1008, silver gilt; Braga Cathedral, Portugal

Photo: Bruce White / Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, reproduced with permission of the Tesouro-Museu da Sé de Braga
Figure 12
Figure 12

Enthronement scene from the pyxis made for Ziyād ibn Aflaḥ, dated 969–70, ivory; Victoria and Albert Museum, 368–1880

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The nature of the historical sources at our disposal means that the events discussed so far have focused on ambassadors and gifts received by al-Manṣūr, but we should also consider what was sent out from Cordoba. As mentioned above, the Kitāb al-Mafākhir tells us that Zīrī ibn ʿAṭiyya was given horses, arms, expensive clothing and money when he was received in Cordoba in 991. This seems to have been a standard ‘gift package’ for Berber allies, as the same ensemble of presents was given by al-Ḥakam to the Idrīsids whom he was trying to lure away from supporting Ḥasan ibn Qānūn.116 The sources also preserve another glimpse of gifts bestowed by al-Manṣūr to important North African clients. When Abū’l-Bahār al-Ṣanhājī briefly revolted in favour of the Umayyads, he sent an embassy to al-Manṣūr led by his nephew, Abū Bakr ibn Ḥabbūs, together with one of his sons as a guarantee of his loyalty, and ‘a good number of Ṣanhājī warriors who were enrolled in the Andalusi army’.117 This deputation arrived in Cordoba in 381/991–2: it was welcomed with the customary military honours, and all its members received ‘rich gifts’.118 Later, when Abū Bakr presented himself to take his leave of the ḥājib, he was showered with gifts to carry back to his uncle, including 25,000 pieces of gold coin, 500 pieces of silk of different kinds, several slaves, jewellery, and other luxury objects which together reached a value of 10,000 dirhams.

5 Objects of Exchange

One can only speculate about the nature of these ‘other luxury objects’, but by this date, the Dār al-Ṣināʿa was already operating under ʿĀmirid control, as al-Manṣūr’s marble basin had been created in 987–8 (Chapter 6, Figures 113–118). Surely al-Manṣūr’s intense campaigning and diplomatic activity in the 980s and 990s kept the craftsmen busy producing objects that could be presented as gifts in these kinds of contexts. As we know, al-Manṣūr was also accustomed to distributing gifts of precious textiles to his allies after a successful campaign (see Chapter 6), so this diplomatic activity implicated the Dār al-Ṭirāz as well.

One crucial piece of evidence survives that indicates the ʿĀmirids were including luxury objects in media such as ivory in their gift-giving. This is the Braga pyxis (Figures 11, 15, Chapter 7 2.2). Made in the name of al-Manṣūr’s son, ʿAbd al-Malik, between 1004 and 1008 according to the titulature used in its inscription (Appendix 4.12), it now houses a silver chalice and paten that were custom-made to fit exactly inside it.119 The correspondence in height and shape is perfect, and the Christian objects even bear a stylistic affinity with the pyxis, since birds and quadrupeds with stalks in their beaks, which appear in roundels on the ivory, have become the main decoration on the chalice. It is possible that these birds had connotations in Christian eyes that suggested an obvious subsequent use as a container for liturgical objects involved in the ritual of the Eucharist.

However, most interestingly, the base of the chalice bears a Latin inscription which reads: In n[omi]ne D[omi]ni Menendus Gundisalvi et Tudad[o]mna sunm. This identifies the commissioners as Menendo González, count of Galicia, and his wife Toda, and allows us to date the chalice and paten to before 1008, when Menendo died. This makes the vessels almost exactly contemporary with the manufacture of the pyxis, indicating that the pyxis was in Menendo’s hands soon after it was made. The explanation is surely due to the conduct of diplomatic relations between Menendo and ʿAbd al-Malik. From 999, Menendo González acted as regent to the minor Alfonso V of León (born 994), and was thus de facto ruler at the same time as ʿAbd al-Malik was inheriting a more significant political role from his father. We know that relations existed between the two rulers by 1003, since an alliance was formed in that year, which agreed to provide Leonese and Castilian participation in a Muslim campaign against Cataluña.120 In 1004, Sancho García of Castile requested right of tutelage over Alfonso, now 10 years old, which was effectively a bid to control Leonese politics. ʿAbd al-Malik was appointed ‘international arbitrator’, and resolved the case in favour of Menendo. Such relations would certainly have been accompanied by the exchange of gifts, and this is a likely context in which the Braga pyxis changed hands. Its peaceable imagery fits perfectly with this notion, and could support the idea that it was carved specifically as a diplomatic gift – a beautiful object courteously offered to express the wish for cordial relations.

Similarly, Miriam Ali-de-Unzaga suggests that at some point in the turbulent relationship between the ʿĀmirid ḥujjāb and Sancho García of Castile, the Andalusi silk-and-gold embroidery now in the Monastery of San Salvador at Oña (Figures 13, 137) exchanged hands as a diplomatic gift. The monastery at Oña was founded by Sancho in 1011, and Ali-de-Unzaga suggests that this magnificent textile may have been a gift from the founder at the time of its consecration.121 The textile itself will be discussed in Chapter 7 (2.4), but as to its dating, the scholarly consensus is that it was made during the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, probably for the caliph himself. What Ali-de-Unzaga does not explain is how it later passed from Umayyad into ʿĀmirid hands. The implication is presumably the usual one, that ʿAbd al-Malik or his father had ‘usurped’ this precious and prestigious embroidery, along with the caliphate. Another possibility is that Sancho obtained the textile after his victorious entry into Cordoba in 1009, when he lent his military support to the caliphal pretender, Sulayman al-Mustaʿīn, and helped him gain the throne; as a reward, he was covered with money, horses, jewels and clothes of honour, which he brought back with him to Burgos and perhaps donated to his own monastic foundation two years later.122 Moreover, Fernando Valdés sensibly points out that the monastery at Oña only grew in importance during the eleventh century, benefitting from considerable donations, gifts and royal burials, and it grew into the most important ecclesiastical institution in Castile. This precious Andalusi embroidery could thus have been donated to the monastery at some considerably later date than its initial foundation.123

Figure 13
Figure 13

Embroidery from the Monastery of San Salvador de Oña, tenth century, silk and gold thread; general view of the largest fragment

© Centro de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales de la Junta de Castilla y León / Fotógrafo: Alberto Plaza

Finally, we might speculate whether the magnificent Pamplona casket (Figures 120–127) found its way to Navarra through diplomatic gift exchange. As we have seen, there was a close, even family, connection between the ʿĀmirids and the Navarrese monarchy, whose capital was at Pamplona, and at least two royal embassies came to Cordoba in the 990s. The casket came to reside in the monastery at Leyre, as a reliquary for the bones of the martyrs Nunila and Alodia, and was there since at least 1057, when their relics were translated into it. As Harris has shown, this monastery ‘was closely allied with the Pamplonese/Navarrese crown and bishopric throughout its history … Four of the monastery’s abbots were simultaneously Bishop of Pamplona, [and] examination of the monastic cartulary proves that many of its donations came from royalty and that at least one member of the royal family was buried at the site’.124 Perhaps this ivory casket came into Navarrese hands during diplomatic contact with the ʿĀmirids, and was later rededicated to this royal foundation as a suitably magnificent container for the relics of these saintly sisters.

As a final point, it is significant to note that most of the instances of ʿĀmirid diplomatic relations that have been discussed here took place in the 990s. This may be a symptom of the fact that Ibn Darrāj, from whom we gather much of our information about the Christian embassies, only became ‘poet laureate’ in 992; nevertheless, as outlined in Chapter 1, it was at exactly this period that al-Manṣūr began to adopt protocol more appropriate to the caliph, in requiring his officials to kiss his hand and to address him with a variety of honorific titles. The increased intensity of diplomatic activity which is observable at this period, and the luxury arts patronage which seems to have accompanied it, should be considered as another aspect of the caliphal protocol and practice which al-Manṣūr consciously adopted in order to express his role as the caliphs’ delegate.

1

Though the phrase ‘Lord of the Christians’ (al-malik al-rūmī) often means the Byzantine Emperor, in this case it probably refers to the King of Navarra, Sancho Abarca, who is also called al-malik al-rūmī in the passage by Ibn al-Khaṭīb cited in full below.

2

There are many studies of the caliphal court, which will be referenced in the discussion below. For ceremonial at the Taifa courts, see especially Robinson 2002.

3

Another reason for this neglect is that the Arabic sources that contain the most information on the ʿĀmirid court have not yet been translated into European languages, and since cultural historians are not necessarily also Arabists, this evidence in somewhat inaccessible. The primary sources which provide interesting information on this period include Ibn Bassām 1989, al-Ḥimyarī 1997, Ibn al-Khaṭīb 1934, and the dīwān of Ibn Darrāj 1969 – of which only Ibn al-Khaṭīb has been translated from Arabic in its entirety.

4

Safran 1999, 193.

5

Sanders 1994, title of Chapter 2.

6

Anales §§43, 51, 67, 70, 77, 220, 228.

7

Anales §§7, 59, 111, 231, 238.

8

For example, al-Ḥakam’s meeting with his son’s new teacher (Anales §141); or commiserating with Ziyād ibn Aflaḥ on the death of his brother (Anales §212).

9

For example, preparations for campaign, cf. §§9, 64; the reception of representatives of the ajnād, cf. §27; parades and triumphs, cf. §§38, 203, 224.

10

Cf. Anales §49 for the arrival of an envoy from the Byzantine Emperor, John Tzimisces (r. 969–976). There is also the famous anomaly of the embassy of John of Gorze from Otto I to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III in 953–956, on which see below.

11

HEM II:141.

12

Barceló 1995, republished in English as Barceló 1998.

13

Bennison 2007a, 74. She notes that they used the entire ceremonial circuit connecting the old (Cordoba) with the new (Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ).

14

Anderson 2013.

15

Stetkevych 1997; see also Sperl 1977.

16

Safran 2000, 70.

17

Safran 2000, 70.

18

Safran 1999, 191; Safran 2000, 51–97.

19

HEM II:141. Lévi-Provençal’s chapter 5, part 4: ‘Le Calife et la vie Califienne’, especially pp. 141–143, ‘La Vie de Cour sous al-Nasir’, is still a key point of reference on the workings of the court.

20

The source for this embassy is the biography of John of Gorze, Vita Iohannis Gorziensis, by John of Saint Arnulf, the last 22 chapters of which are concerned with John’s mission. The Latin text is reproduced with a Spanish translation in Paz y Melia 1931. The final meeting with the caliph is described in chapters 131–134 (pp. 145–149 of the article). Cf. also Bayān II:234 [translation, 362]; Vasiliev 1950, 219; HEM II:154–155; El-Hajji 1970, 208–227; Barceló 1997; Ecker 1992, 56–62.

21

Diplomatic contact with the Ottonians probably began c. 950 over the issue of the colony which Andalusi corsairs had established at Fraxinetum, on the east coast of southern France, at the end of the ninth century; see HEM II:154–160. Otto seems to have held ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III responsible for this, and a Cordoban embassy to the German court, presumably sent to counter this accusation, seems to have caused some offence. The reason for John of Gorze’s three-year delay is that Andalusi court officials discovered he had brought an unsuitably insolent letter from Otto, so a new embassy – led by ʿArīb ibn Saʿd, Bishop Recemundo of Elvira, who frequently acted in the role of Latin interpreter – was sent to extract a more temperate letter from the German ruler; see Paz y Melia 1931, chapters 120–130.

22

Paz y Melia 1931, 146 (ch. 132).

23

Paz y Melia 1931, 146–147 (ch. 132). Ecker 1992, 61, suggests that the reception of John of Gorze took place at the new palace of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ, indeed that it was one of the first occasions on which the audience hall was used, even that John’s reception was postponed until its completion. It appears that the German envoys stayed in one of the many munyas located in the environs of Cordoba: cf. Paz y Melia 1931, 130 (ch. 118).

24

Paz y Melia 1931, 147 (ch. 132).

25

Paz y Melia 1931, 148 (ch. 134).

26

Paz y Melia 1931, 148–149 (ch. 134). Sadly there is no record of what these gifts were.

27

Ecker 1992, 61.

28

Menocal 2002, 32–3.

29

Bayān II:229, 231 [translation, 353–362]; Vasiliev 1950, 218–219, 274–281. On Andalusi-Byzantine relations, see HEM II:143–153; Vasiliev 1968, 320–332; Shepard 1988, 81–84, much of which is derived from the two previous works. These relations were resumed c. 949 after a hiatus of over 100 years, and 949–950 saw the exchange of several embassies between ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III and Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. It is not clear which side initiated diplomatic contact, though Shepard, p. 81, believes it was Byzantium, keen to neutralise its Islamic neighbours in the Mediterranean – both of whom had larger fleets than it did – before launching its unsuccessful attack on Crete in 949.

30

Anales Palatinos, pp. 54–74 (§§16–26); see also Safran 2000, 80–88; Bennison 2007a.

31

Sanders 1994, 14.

32

Though the Arab account would of course overestimate the Byzantine reaction: for example, ‘The [Byzantine] ambassadors … were stupefied and scared by the spectacle of royal majesty and by the crowd’ (Ibn ʿIdhārī quoted in Vasiliev 1950, 218); or, ‘never had they seen at the court of any king before [ʿAbd al-Raḥmān] such demonstration of splendour and power’ (Ibn ʿIdhārī, in Vasiliev 1950, 219).

33

Bennison 2007a, 74.

34

Barceló 1998, 9. The most representative sections in the Anales Palatinos which describe ceremonial occasions at al-Ḥakam’s court are: §§26, 28, 115, 130, 146, 157–159, 174, 195, 203, 220.

35

Barceló 1998, 10.

36

Barceló 1998, 18–19.

37

Barceló 1998, 15.

38

Barceló 1998, 16.

39

For the text of these ceremonies, see al-Rāzī 1983, 81ff. (361/972); 119ff. (362/973); 229ff. (364/975). For translations, see Anales §§ 68, 127 and 237 respectively.

40

These are: ʿīd al-aḍḥā 362/973 (Anales §143), ʿīd al-fiṭr 363/974 (§180), and ʿīd al-aḍḥā 363/974 (§198).

41

Stetkevych 1997, 1.

42

Cf. Monroe 1971a, 7, who says that ‘satirical poetry … played a major role against the enemy in war’.

43

See Ruggles 2000, 67.

44

Barceló 1998, 19.

45

Sourdel 1960, 143ff.

46

Sanders 1994, 34. Bennison 2007a, 75 says of al-Ḥakam II that the ‘caliph entered the hall first and left last, creating an illusion of stasis and stability’.

47

Barceló 1998, 19.

48

For example, the fatā al-kabīr Durrī al-Saghīr made a present to al-Ḥakam of his Munyat al-Rummāniyya in 362/973, cf. Anales §104. It is not coincidental that this gift came a month after Durrī had fallen out of favour with the caliph, cf. Anales §94. On al-Rummāniyya, see Ocaña 1984a; Anderson 2013; and the work of Arnold, Canto and Vallejo 2008, 2015, 2019. On the legendary gift presented by Aḥmad ibn Shuhayd to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III in 327/939, in thanks for his becoming the first ever appointee to the office of dhū’l-wizāratayn, see HEM II:142–143; Dickie 1964, 244–247.

49

Ibn Ḥayyān 1979, §§238–9.

50

Sanders 2001, 225–6. For further bibliography on khilʿa, see the discussion in Chapter 6.

51

Ballestín 2004a, 58.

52

Ballestín 2004a, 59–60, 81–2; Ballestín 2006.

53

Anales §140, 166–168; Ballestín 2006.

54

Ballestín 2004a, 85–88; Manzano 2019, 121.

55

HEM II:152–153; Vasiliev 1968, 326.

56

Holod 1992, 46.

57

Ibn Ḥayyān, apud al-Maqqarī, I: 237; cf. Bayān II:247 [translation, 382]. HEM II:148–149, suggests the date of the embassy, which is not given by the contemporary historians.

58

Translation from Bargebuhr 1968, 155.

59

Silva 2012, 285, 287, citing Vallejo, 2010, 184.

60

Williamson 2010, 68–73 (cat. 13), discussing one such example now in the V&A (inv. 5471–1859).

61

Bayān III:38 [translation, 43], and below.

62

Barton 2011, 9; Echevarría 2011, 107–9.

63

Barton 2011, 10.

64

Barton 2011, 2–11; Ruggles 2004.

65

Barton 2011, 8; Anderson 2014, esp. 22–24, including a genealogical table at Fig. 7.

66

Barton 2011, 3.

67

Barton 2011, 9–11.

68

Echevarría 2011, 107.

69

Bayān II:291 [translation, 452].

70

Cited and discussed in Barton 2011, 12–17.

71

Cotarelo 1903. The myth still persists, however, and even Echevarría, who is otherwise very sensible in her interpretation of the historical data, repeats that al-Manṣūr was married to Teresa Bermúdez: Echevarría 2011, 109.

72

Echevarría 2011, 110, 155.

73

HEM II:143. Kennedy 1996, 98, says that, given the Byzantine emperors’ role as the traditional rivals of the caliphs, ‘no doubt ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III felt that Byzantine diplomacy, like minting gold coins, was one of the attributes of his new office’.

74

El-Hajji 1970, 30.

75

Dozy 1913, 500.

76

Makkī 1963–64, 66; Makkī 1969, 412 ff.

77

See Makkī 1969, 335–339 (#107); 341–344 (#109); 349–353 (#112); 366–368 (#117).

78

HEM II:144; see also Dozy 1913, 440–443; El-Hajji 1970, 46, 54, 58–59, 74–76; Anderson 2014, 22 ff. According to Anderson, while Toda had visited ʿAbd al-Raḥmān in person in his campaign tent in 933–4 – invoking kinship ties to intercede with the caliph not to attack Pamplona – it appears unlikely that she visited Cordoba herself in 958 (pp. 26–7). Nevertheless, she may have taken advantage of Sancho’s time in Cordoba to commission the ivory processional cross for her new church at San Millán de la Cogolla.

79

See Dozy 1913, 448–452; HEM II:174–178; El-Hajji 1970, 77–80.

80

Makkī 1963–64, 66.

81

HEM II:144.

82

Stetkevych 1997, 20–21. On ‘ceremony and submission’ under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, see Safran 1999.

83

Makkī 1963–64, 76.

84

Makkī 1963–64, 66; on al-Manṣūr’s relations with Castile, see pp. 65–69. On Sancho’s rebellion, Ruiz Asencio 1969.

85

Makkī 1963–64, 66.

86

For information on the ʿĀmirids’ engagement with Sancho, see Ruiz Asencio 1969.

87

Makkī 1963–64, 81; on the County of ‘Carrión y Saldaña’, see pp. 80–82. For the history of the Banū Gómez from the late eleventh century, see Senra 2006. Known today as Carrión de los Condes, this is where the painted ivory chest made for the Fatimid caliph al-Muʿizz (r. 953–975) and now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid was found (inv. 50887). As I argue in my 2015a article (esp. pp. 50–51), it is possible that this object was in Cordoba – probably as the result of diplomatic activity relating to the struggle for hegemony in North Africa between the Umayyads and Fatimids – and was brought from there to Carrión when the relics of San Zoilo (d. fourth century) were translated from Cordoba in 1051–2. On the ivory casket made for al-Muʿizz, see Lévi-Provençal 1931, 191–192 (#210); Bloom 2011; Armando 2015.

88

Makkī 1963–64, 81. On Gómez Díaz’s embassy, cf. Anales §146.

89

HEM II:245, though Makkī 1963–64, 81, inclines towards an earlier date.

90

Makkī 1963–64, 82.

91

Makkī 1969, 330–332.

92

Makkī 1963–64, 75: relations with Navarra are discussed on pp. 74–79.

93

Ibn al-Khaṭīb 1934, 84–85. It should be noted that Makkī 1963–64, 75, n. 29, cites the 1956 edition, where this passage occurs at pp. 73–74. The embassy is also mentioned in HEM II:242–243. I gratefully acknowledge the help of Martin Accad and Isla Rosser-Owen in my translation of this passage.

94

Makkī 1969, 335–339.

95

Makkī 1963–64, 75.

96

Some of these translations are taken from Monroe 1971a, 10–11.

97

Makkī 1963–64, 75.

98

Ballestín 2004a, 168–172, following Kitāb al-Mafākhir; qv Bayān II (1951):299. Al-Maqqarī (pace Gayangos p. 191), says that the embassy on Zīrī’s behalf occurred in 381/991–992, while Lévi-Provençal and Idris dated a second embassy from Zīrī to 384/994, which makes sense in the light of the chronology of Zīrī’s struggle with Abū’l-Bahār al-Ṣanhājī (see below): see HEM II:267; Idris 1962, I, 82.

99

Ballestín 2004a, 168–9. He quotes the passage from the Kitāb al-Mafākhir, 22.

100

Al-Maqqarī, 191; HEM II:265 (though he means a different Jaʿfar). Ballestín, citing Bayān II (1951):299, says he was given accommodation in the palace where Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī had stayed and, as was the latter, received with the dignity of a minister.

101

On which see Meouak 1999, 51.

102

Ibn Khaldūn 1934, 238, says that Zīrī was compensated for his travel expenses and the cost of the gifts he had brought, receiving ‘a great deal of money and precious robes of honour’.

103

Bennison 2007a, 75.

104

Ballestín 2004a, 172, citing Ibn Khaldūn 1934, 239.

105

Ballestín 2004a, 170–171, n. 111.

106

Ballestín 2004a, 172, citing Ibn Khaldūn 1934, 239.

107

Ballestín 2004a, 183.

108

Ballestín 2004a, 185.

109

Ibn Khaldūn 1934, 243.

110

The sources are the Kitāb al-Mafākhir (which is the longest), Ibn Abī Zarʿ’s Rawdh al-Qirtas, and Ibn Khaldūn’s Kitāb al-ʿIbar (1934 edition, p. 243). The three passages listing the diplomatic gifts are given in Spanish in Ballestín 2004a, 185–6, and the contents and significance of the gift is analysed at pp. 187–9. Al-Maqqarī’s account, at least according to Gayangos’s translation (discussed further below), contains some more colourful information, for example that the bird (tayr) ‘spoke eloquently in Arabic and Berber’ (Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties, vol. II, Book VI, Chapter VII, p. 191).

111

Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties, vol. II, Book VI, Chapter VII, p. 191.

112

In my 1999 article, I noted that 8000 lbs (approx. 3600 kg) of raw ivory was equivalent to some 160 tusks at an average weight of 50 lbs or approx. 22.7 kg per African elephant tusk. I was way off! The tusks of a bull elephant killed near Mount Kilimanjaro c. 1898 (on which see Chapter 6, n. 132) weighed 94 kg and 89 kg. Taking approx. 90 kg as an average weight, this represents a cache of about 40 tusks. However, the point is moot if the original Arabic text does not exist, as discussed below.

113

Dozy 1855–61; 1967. My thanks to Amira Bennison and Eduardo Manzano for corroborating my own search through the primary sources.

114

Given his personal circumstances, the original text is likely to be either in the Escorial Library, or the British Library in London. On Gayangos, see Álvarez Millán and Heide 2008.

115

On this translation enterprise, see Ruggles 1991, esp. pp. 132–3.

116

Ballestín 2004a, 168; Ballestín 2006.

117

Ibn Khaldūn 1934, 241; HEM II:266; Idris 1962, I, 80.

118

Ibn Khaldūn 1934, 241.

119

O’Neill 1993, 148–149 (cat. 73), and Prado-Vilar 1997, 33, n. 85.

120

HEM II:286.

121

Ali-de-Unzaga 2012a, 568.

122

Ali-de-Unzaga 2012a, 569, referencing Bayān III:86 and Scales 1994, 188.

123

Valdés Fernández 2001.

124

Harris 1995, 215 ff.

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