Informal Talk: Javier Albarrán

Saladin in the Islamic West: A copy of al-Iṣfahānī’s al-Fatḥ al-Qussī fī l-fatḥ al-Qudsī in Fes

Javier Albarrán (University of Granada)

In 1105, the Damascene scholar ʿAlī ibn Ṭāhir al-Sulamī (d. 1106) composed his Kitāb al-Jihād, the first treatise on holy war written after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem. In this work, he interpreted the Crusades as a form of Christian jihād taking place across the Mediterranean, beginning in al-Andalus, continuing through Sicily, and culminating in Syria. In doing so, al-Sulamī linked the Latin expansion in the Holy Land with the conquests carried out by the Iberian Christian kingdoms against al-Andalus. This perspective—later echoed by authors such as Ibn al-Athīr (d. 1233)—aligns with modern historiographical interpretations of episodes such as the conquest of Barbastro (1064), often described as a proto-crusade in which Arabic chroniclers like Ibn Ḥayyān (d. 1075) emphasized the role of the papacy. Texts such as al-Sulamī’s demonstrate that scholars in the Mashriq possessed relatively detailed knowledge of developments in al-Andalus and the Maghrib. At the same time, there is clear evidence of the circulation of texts from the Islamic West to the East, as well as the mobility of Andalusi and Maghribi scholars who traveled to the Mashriq and brought with them experiences and perspectives shaped in al-Andalus. Yet the opposite movement also occurred: news, works, and ideas produced in the Islamic East in the contexto f the Crusades reached al-Andalus and the Maghrib, potentially influencing how scholars there interpreted and responded to the Christian advance.

The research presented in this talk examines precisely this circulation of texts and ideas between the Eastern and Western Islamic worlds and their reception in al-Andalus and the Maghrib. As a detailed case study, it focuses on manuscript 560 of the Qarawiyyin Library in Fes, which contains an Andalusi copy of al-Fatḥ al-Qussī fī l-fatḥ al-Qudsī, a work by ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī describing Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem. The manuscript also includes an ijāza issued by the famous Andalusi traveler Ibn Jubayr. Combining textual and codicological analysis, the study seeks to better understand the processes of transmission, production, and reception of this work, as well as the broader intellectual exchanges that connected the Islamic East and West in the medieval Mediterranean.