Ibn Bashkuwal

Ibn Bashkuwāl, Khalaf ibn ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Mas'ud ibn Musa ibn Bashkuwāl ibn Yûsuf al-Ansârī,^[1] Abū'l-Qāsim (خلف بن عبد الملك بن مسعود بن موسى بن بشكوال بن يوسف, أبو القاسم) (var. Ḫalaf b.'Abd al- Malik b. Mas'ūd b. Mūsā b. Baškuwāl, Abū'l-Qāsim; September 1101 in Córdoba – 5 January 1183 in Sarrión), was an influential Andalusian traditionist and biographer working in Córdoba and Seville.

His ancestry was Arab and was a descendant of al-Ansar^[1]- he was known as Ibn Bashkuwāl ("son of Pasqual") in the Valencia region. His first teacher was his father (d.1139), to whom he dedicates a section in his biographical work. He studied with the most famous scholars of his time: Ibn al-'Arabī al-Ma'āfirī and the lawyer Abūl-Walīd ibn Ruschd (died 1126), the grandfather of the philosopher Averroës. In his hometown he worked as a consulting lawyer (faqīh mušāwar)^[2] and for a short time as deputy Qādī in Seville under Ibn al-'Arabī. It appears he never travelled to the East and his scholarship derived from the Andalusian-Islamic tradition. His biographer Ibn Abbār (d. Jan 1260)^[3] mentions 41 scholars in Córdoba and Seville, with whom he studied.^[4] His library held works by authors from the Islamic East; of which is the K. as-Siyar from Abū Ishāq al-Fazārī, on whose title page he is documented as the owner of the work.^[5]

He died in January 1183 and was buried in the cemetery known then as Ibn 'Abbās Scholars’ Cemetery in Córdoba^[6]

Ibn Bashkuwāl's biographers attribute him authorship of twenty-six known books, treatises and monographs of biographical content,^[7] and list his teachers and the texts he studied.^[8] Among his few surviving works are:

• Aṣ-ṣila fī ta'rīḫ a'immat al-Andalus (الصلة في تاريخ أئمة الأندلس), ‘Continuation of the scholarly history of al-Andalus’; continuation of Ibn al-Faraḍī's (d. 1013) famous biographical dictionary of Islamic Spain's scholars,^[9] which contains 1541^[10] biographies of 11th and 12th century Andalusian scholars. In a dedicated chapter (faṣl) he presents the life of the so-called "strangers" (al-ghurabā), who came to al-Andalus from the Orient and Ifrīqiya.^[11]
  • Ibn al-Abbār (1199-1260) from Valencia^[3] wrote the supplement (Takmilat K. as-ṣila) and filled some gaps found in the original work. In the first volume he wrote a detailed biography of Ibn Baškuwāl.^[12]
  • Another supplement and continuation of Ibn Baškuwāl's work was written by Ibn az-Zubair al-Gharnāṭī (1230, Jaén (Jayyān) – 1309, Granada (Gharnāṭa))^[13] entitled ilat aṣ-ṣila ('The continuation of the ṣila') or: 'The story of the scholars of al-Andalus, in which he (the author) of the Kitāb aṣ-ṣila continued by Ibn Baškuwāl'.^[14] This book deals with the Andalusian scholars of the 12th and 13th centuries. A fragment of the work was published by the French orientalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal in 1937 (Rabat). Three further volumes with corrections and additions to the first edition were published in 1993 (Rabat).^[15]
• Kitāb ġawāmiḍ al-asmā' al-mubhama al-wāqi'a fī-'l-aḥādīṯ al-musnada (كتاب غوامض الأسماء المبهمة الواقعة في الأحاديث المسندة), ‘Secrets of indistinct names found in Hadiths with complete Isnads’; two-volume biographical compilation and explanation of personal names, names of ancestry contradictorily, or incorrectly, reported in the literature.^[16]
• Shuyūḥ'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb al-Qurashī (شيوخ عبد الله بن وهب القرشي), ‘Teachers of 'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb al-Qurashī’; biographical dictionary of teachers of the Egyptian scholar 'Abdallāh ibn Wahb^[17] with rich information about its importance as a primary source of Ibn Wahb. Contains an appended biography of Ibn Wahb.^[18]
• Kitāb al-mustaġīṯīn bi-lāhāhi (كتاب المستغيثين بالله), ‘Book of the beseechers of God’; collected hadith with complete isnād traditions containing the Holy Du'ā ' intercessions.^[19] In this work Ibn Bashkuwāl cites the titles and authors of thirteen source works.^[20] At the beginning of this collection for example, the intercession of the Prophet Muḥammad in the Battle of Badr is linked to the Qur’ān verse:

When you called your Lord for help! Then he heard you (and frowned): I will assist you with a thousand angels...

— Quran 8:9, translation: Rudi Paret

• The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill. Leiden. Vol. 3, p. 733
• Manuela Marín (ed.): Ibn Baškuwāl (m 578/1183): Kitāb al-mustagīṯīn bi-llāh. (En busca del socorro divino). Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas. 8th Madrid 1991.
• Carl Brockelmann: History of Arabic Literature. 2nd Edition. Brill, Leiden 1943. Vol.1, p. 415
• Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature. Vol.1. Brill, Leiden 1967.
• Qāsim'Alī Sa'd: Muḥaddiṯ al-Andalus al-Ḥāfiẓ al-mu'arriḫ Abū'l-Qāsim b. Baškuwāl. Šaḫṣiyyatu-hu wa-mu'allafātu-hu. ('The Hadith scholar of al-Andalus, the historian Abū'l-Qāsim b Baškuwāl, his personality and his works'). In: Maǧallat Ǧāmi'at Umm al-Qurā li-'ulūm aš-šarī'a wa -'l-luġa al-'arabiyya wa-dābi-hā. Vol.18, n.28 (Mecca, 2003), p. 222-288 (in Arabic)