973: Ibn Ḥawqal on Christian-Muslim Marriages in Sicily

Author: Theresa Jäckh

Source

Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. Michael J. De Goeje, rev. Johannes H. Kramers (Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum 2a), Leiden: Brill, 1938, p. 129, transl. Theresa Jäckh.

المشعمذون اكثر اهل حصونهم وباديتهم وضياعهم، رأيتهم التزويج الى النصارى على ان ما كان بينهم من ولدٍ ذكر لحق بأبيه من المشعمذون وما كانت من انثى فنصرانية مع امها، لايصلّون ولا يتطهرون ولا يزكون ولا يحجّون. وفيهم من يصوم شهر الرمضان ويغتسلون اذا صاموا من الجنابة. وهذه منقبةٌ لا يشَركهم أحد وفضيلة دون جميع الخلق، احرزوا بها في الجهل قصب السبق.

Most inhabitants of their fortresses, rural areas, and villages are mušaʿmiḏūn. I have seen that they enter into marriage with Christian women, which leads to the boys being assigned to their fathers as al-mušʿamiḏūn and the girls becoming Christian women with their mothers. They do not pray, they do not perform acts of ritual purification, they do not give alms, and they do not go on pilgrimage. Some of them fast in the month Ramaḍān and thus achieve purification after great ritual impurity (al-ğanāba). This [practice] is a curiosity they do not share with anyone else in the world, and with this trait they have won the trophy in the race of stupidity.

Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb al-masālik wa-l-mamālik, ed. Michael J. De Goeje (Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum 2), Leiden: Brill, 1873.

Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. Michael J. De Goeje, rev. Johannes H. Kramers (Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum 2a), Leiden: Brill, 1938.

Ibn Ḥawqal, Configuration de la Terre (Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ). Introduction et traduction, avec index, 2 vols., transl. Johannes H. Kramers, Gaston Wiet, Paris: G.P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1964.

Ibn Ḥawqal, Sicily, in: Bernard Lewis (Ed./ Transl.), Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the capture of Constantinople, vol. 2: Religion and society (Documentary History of Western Civilisation), New York: Harper & Row, 1987, pp. 87-101.

Editions & Translations

Agius, Dionisius: Siculo Arabic (Library of Arabic Linguistics 12), Reprint Abingdon: Routledge, 2010.

Benchekroun, Chafik T.: Requiem pour Ibn Ḥawqal, in: Journal asiatique 304/2 (2016), pp. 193-211.

Blau, Joshua: Milon le-ṭeḳsṭim ʿaraviyim-yehudiyim mi-yeme ha-benayim / A Dictionary of Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Texts, Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2006.

Blau, Joshua: The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic. A Study of the Origins of Middle Arabic, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, 1981.

Bousquet, Georges-Henri: Ghusl, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam 2, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, 1965, p. 1104.

Christ, Georg; Dönitz, Saskia; König, Daniel et al.: Transkulturelle Verflechtungen. Mediävistische Perspektiven, Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2016.

Ducène, Jean-Charles: Ibn Ḥawqal, in: Encyclopedia of Islam 3, Leiden: Brill, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30810

Ducène, Jean-Charles: L‘Europe et les géographes arabes du Moyen Âge (IXe-XVe siècle): "La grande terre" et ses peuples: conceptualisation d'un espace ethnique et politique, Paris: CNRS, 2018.

Epstein, Steven: Hybridity, in: Peregrine Horden, Sharon Kinoshita (eds), A Companion to Mediterranean History, Chichester: Wiley, 2014, pp. 345-358.

Gabrieli, Francesco: Ibn Ḥawqal e gli Arabi di Sicilia, in: Rivista degli Studi Orientali 36 (1961), pp. 245-253.

Garcin, Jean-Claude: Ibn Ḥawqal, l’Orient et le Maghreb, in: Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 35 (1983), pp. 77-91.

Grossberg, David: Heresy and the Formation of the Rabbinic Community, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017.

Halm, Heinz: Das Reich des Mahdi. Der Aufstieg der Fatimiden, München: C.H. Beck,1991.

Juynboll, Thomas: Djanāba, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam 2, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, 1965, pp. 44-45.

König, Daniel: Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe, Oxford: OUP 2015.

König, Daniel: Caught Between Cultures? Bicultural Personalities as Cross-Cultural Transmitters in the Late Antique and Medieval Mediterranean, in: Rania Abdellatif, Yassir Benhima, Daniel König et al. (eds), Acteurs des transferts culturels en Méditerranée médiévale, München: Oldenbourg, 2012, pp. 56-72.

Kraemer, Joel: Maimonides. The Life and World of one of Civilization’s Greatest Minds, New York: Doubleday, 2008.

Langer, Ruth: Cursing the Christians? A History of the Birkat HaMinim, Oxford: OUP 2012.

Mandalà, Giuseppe: Tra minoranze e periferie. Prolegomeni a un'indagine sui cristiani arabizzati di Sicilia, in: Kordula Wolf, Marco di Branco (eds), “Guerra santa” e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII-XI secolo), Rome: Viella, 2014, pp. 95-124.

Metcalfe, Alex: Before the Normans: Identity and Societal Formation in Muslim Sicily’, in: Dirk Booms, Peter Higgs (eds), Sicily, Heritage of the World, London: The British Museum, pp. 102-119.

Metcalfe, Alex: Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. Arabic Speakers and the End of Islam, London: Routledge, 2003.

Metcalfe, Alex: Transkultureller und sozioreligiöser Wandel im muslimischen und frühen normannischen Sizilien, in: Wolfang Gruber, Stephan Köhler (eds), Siziliens Geschichte: Insel zwischen den Welten (Expansion, Interaktion, Akkulturation 24), Vienna: Mandelbaum, 2013, pp. 68-98.

Miquel, André: Ibn Ḥawqal, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam 2, vol. 3, Leiden: Brill, 1971, pp. 786-788.

Miquel, André: La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu’au milieu du XI s., vol. 1, Paris: La Haye, 1967.

Teppler, Yakob: Birkat HaMinim. Jews and Christians in Conflict in the Ancient World, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007.

Wiet, Gaston: L’importance d’Ibn Hauqal dans la littérature arabe, in: Johannes H. Kramers, Gaston Wiet (eds), Ibn Hauqal, Configuration de la Terre (Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ). Introduction et traduction, avec index, vol. 1, Paris / Beirut: G.P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1964, pp. IX-XVII.

Zeitlin, Solomon: Mumar and Meshumad, in: The Jewish Quarterly Review 54/1 (1963), pp. 84-86.

Cited & Additional Literature

Apostasy, Cairo Genizah, conversion, Hebrew-Arabic, Ibn Ḥawqal, Images of “the Other”, interreligious marriage and family, Islamic law, Jewish law, linguistic transfer, minorities, (im)purity, religion, Sicily, Talmud

Recommended Citation

Theresa Jäckh, "973: Ibn Ḥawqal on Christian-Muslim Marriages in Sicily", in: Transmediterranean History. Commented Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Daniel G. König, Theresa Jäckh, Eric Böhme, URL: https://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/transmed-en/index.php/973:_Ibn_Ḥawqal_on_Christian-Muslim_Marriages_in_Sicily. Last Revision: 02.06.2020, Access: 10.05.2024.

Keywords

{{{8}}}

---