al-Azraqī

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The book of Aḫbār Makka by al-Azraqī

Abū l-Walīd Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Azraqī ( Arabic أبو الوليدأحمد بن محمد الأزرقي, DMG Abū l-Walīd Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Azraqī , d. 837 ) was a historian and the author of the oldest surviving work on the city of Mecca . He was the descendant of a Byzantine named al-Azraq, "the blue-eyed", who was sold as a slave to aṭ-Ṭāʾif , where he lived until 629.

Abū ʾl-Walīd al-Azraqī was a traditionarian , according to which Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others narrated. He himself relied primarily on the traditions of the early authors of the Sira and Maghazi literature, and also on the narrators of the local news about the history of the city of Mecca.

His work "The News of Mecca and its Monuments" ( Aḫbār Makka wa-mā ǧāʾa fī-hā min al-āṯār ) is the oldest chronicle of the city of Mecca. Ibn an-Nadīm names it under a similar title: "The book about Mecca, its chronicles, its mountains and valleys." He continues: "It is a comprehensive book." The book is in the processing of his grandson Abū l-Walīd , Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Azraqī († 865) received. There are three editions of this work:

  • The work - together with other city chronicles of Mecca - was published for the first time by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld : The Chronicles of the City of Mecca. Volume I. The history and description of the city of Mecca by al-Azraqī . (Leipzig 1858; digitized version ). His edition was reprinted several times in the Orient.
  • A careful edition with detailed indices - Koran and Hadith quotations, names of prophets and other personal names, tribal and place names, markets, idol names, poetry - was published in the edition of Rušdī aṣ-Ṣāliḥ Malḥas in Mecca in 1933. It comprises two parts (304 + 299 pages) in one volume and was reprinted in Beirut in 1983 ( digitized ).
  • Another two-volume edition is that of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Duhaiš (Mecca 2003; digitized version ).

The author first describes the history of the Kaaba based on the Islamic traditions of the prophetic legends, furthermore the development of the city in the Jāhilīya , the idol worship up to the "rediscovery" of the sanctuary founded by the Islamic teachings of Abraham by the ancestors of Muhammad . This is followed by the description of pilgrimage ceremonies in both pre-Islamic and Islamic times. The documentation of tribal or family-owned settlements, mosques, markets, public places and cemeteries is of great importance in terms of urban history .

See also

literature

  • JW Fück: The ancestor of Azraqī . In: Studi Orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida . Vol. 1, pp. 336-340
  • Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature . Brill, Leiden 1967. Vol. 1, p. 344
  • The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Brill, suffering. Vol. 1, p. 826

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JW Fück: The ancestor of Azraqī. In: Studi Orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida . Vol. 1, pp. 336-340; here: 338
  2. ↑ al-Fihrist. (Ed. Riḍā Taǧaddud). Tehran 1971. p. 125
personal data
SURNAME Azraqī, al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abū ʾl-Walīd al-Azraqī
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Historian and author of the oldest surviving work on the city of Mecca
DATE OF BIRTH 8th century or 9th century
DATE OF DEATH 837