In the centre of the hall is a large basin of green water
in which the turtles continually make sounds.
The water pours from the jaws of a lion whose mouth
could only be more terrible if it spoke.
It is of scented aloeswood and around its neck
one sees a handsome necklace of pearls.
Meanwhile, the jasmine watches from its throne, as if it were a king,
When a sudden blaze of light would have brought down the head
And narcissus, wallflowers, violets and roses stop exhaling their perfume.
They watch languidly, and out of happiness they can scarcely contain
the desire to speak to you, despite not having tongues.
At your side you have lilies that sprout from themselves,
The luminosity of the spring, such is the beauty which they give out.
All of these [flowers], in their abundant diversity, remind you
Of the victorious banners trembling on the day of combat.
In this hall, without doubt, a king, whose riches are without number,
has gathered all happiness[es] for his people.
And thanks to him the West has attained such power
That even the East feels envy because of him.
AbÅ« MarwÄn al-JazÄ«rÄ« (d. 1003)1
âµ
The patronage of the luxury arts by the Ê¿Ämirid ḥujjÄb was not motivated merely by the desire to surround themselves with beautiful objects, but entailed the full-scale mobilisation of an industry that had been established by the caliphs in order to articulate their power and authority. The physical location of the DÄr al-á¹¢inÄÊ¿a, or at least a branch of it, within the Ê¿Ämirid power-centre and under their direct control, via their fityÄn, enabled the ḥujjÄb to dictate their messages of self-expression, not only visually through the iconography they chose to employ, but also through their epigraphic programmes. The objects commissioned by al-Manṣūr and his two sons fit squarely into the formal tradition of the luxury arts produced under their caliphal predecessors, in the sense that in the broad terms of material, shape and decorative vocabulary, Ê¿Ämirid art continued traditions that had been established at the caliphal DÄr al-á¹¢inÄÊ¿a. The iconography employed in Andalusi art draws on the standard repertoire of images that form the âprincelyâ or âcourtly cycleâ â stock scenes such as the seated ruler with cup in hand, the falconer on horseback, and the paired or single animals connoting royalty (such as lions, eagles or peacocks), are as pervasive in al-Andalus as in other contemporary Islamic contexts. However, the images chosen to adorn Ê¿Ämirid works of art were not simply scenes selected at random from the stock repertoire, but had a particular Ê¿Ämirid meaning. We can elucidate this meaning by considering the iconography in direct relation to imagery that was current in the contemporary poetry likewise created for Ê¿Ämirid patrons. The presentation of a particular text or image on an object was a deliberate choice on the part of the patron, and as we will discuss here, the Ê¿Ämiridsâ choice of what to depict on their art shows significant variations from the caliphal norm. Understanding their iconographic and epigraphic programmes allows us to reconstruct the ways in which they wished to present themselves, to the audiences to whom their objects were displayed.
As discussed in Chapter 3, Arabic poetic imagery draws on a complex system of quotation and topoi, whose references and resonances would have been instantly recognisable to the educated audience. It was this same audience, composed of the Andalusi social elite, which patronised the luxury arts, and the imagery of Andalusi poetry can therefore not be separated from that of the surviving art. The trend towards increasing figurativism noticeable in both the luxury and literary arts under the Ê¿Ämirids may be a symptom of this interrelationship. As Cómez Ramos notes, images âpassed from one medium to another, from poetry to the plastic arts and vice versa ⦠producing a game of allusions and referencesâ; he describes the lion and eagle motifs which feature on the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins as â[visualisations of] the metaphors which [the] poets sangâ, as âpoems in stoneâ.2
The use of poetic testimony thus allows us to understand the impression that an image might have conjured in the mind of a member of the Andalusi elite with a position at the Ê¿Ämirid court. Part 1 of this chapter will focus on elements of the Ê¿Ämiridsâ decorative vocabulary that between them cover most of the surface area of these objects â we can surmise that these images were therefore intended to be the most striking elements of the Ê¿Ämirid visual programme and thus of the ḥujjÄbâs âpublic imageâ. These elements comprise the motif of a lion attacking a gazelle; nature imagery; the âheraldicâ eagle, which has a probable visual association with the banners of the Umayyad army; and the possibility of allusions to literary illustrations, in particular the KalÄ«la wa Dimna. I will not engage in art historical taxonomies of the origins and trajectories of these motifs, but will focus on how their meaning was understood in the specific, local context in which they were created and consumed â the Ê¿Ämirid court in al-Andalus in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The inscriptions and semantic games used on these objects will be discussed in Part 2.
1 Poetic and Visual Imagery
1.1 The Lion and Gazelle (Figure 157)
By far the largest surface area on objects produced under Ê¿Ämirid patronage is dedicated to scenes of combat between animals, or between animals and humans. The Pamplona casket (Chapter 7: 2.1) provides something of a catalogue of combat scenes, which form the decoration of eight of its nine carved plaques. These include dogs, lions, eagles and other birds of prey attacking weaker animals; tense scenes of affronted wild or mythological animals poised before combat; and hunting scenes, showing men on foot or horseback spearing leopards/cheetahs or lions, and the representation of what seems to be a joust on the back of the casket. However, the combat motif that most frequently recurs in Ê¿Ämirid art is that of the âconquering lionâ, which, as Ettinghausen stated, â[renders] the ⦠concept of uncompromising rule by the paramount powerâ.3
The lion as a symbol of royalty and secular power is millennia-old. âLion-thronesâ possibly visualised a reference to Solomon as the ideal ruler,4 and Islamic rulers kept physical representations of lions near their thrones: this may have been the function of the lion statue found at Mshatta,5 or the limestone footrest in the form of a double-headed lion, found in Badajoz and possibly dating from the Taifa period.6 Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III associated himself physically with lions in an extremely vivid manner. In addition to the lion among the fountain-heads which he commissioned to adorn his gift from the Byzantine Emperor (Chapter 2), and the massive golden lion he added as the termination of the aqueduct at the Munyat al-NÄÊ¿Å«rah (below), Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn used live lions âto make his punishment more terrifyingâ, a tactic which Ibn ḤayyÄn says he imitated from âthe tyrannic kings of the Eastâ.7 Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn received lions as gifts from his Berber clients in the Maghrib,8 and to house them he constructed a special lion-house behind his palace at Cordoba, âon a bridge that was elevated over a gully ⦠which still today bears the name of the Bridge of Lionsâ.9 They were kept chained and attended by tamers, but on one occasion a lion is said to have broken loose and wandered into a nearby mosque where a holy man was praying. The lion sat down next to him and started roaring, but the man did not interrupt his prayer until he had finished. At that point he saw the lion, called on Allah, and cried at the lion to get far away âbecause this was not his placeâ. The lion turned and left the mosque, just as his guard came looking for him, and took him back to the caliphal lion-house. Though it is unlikely that this âmiraculous storyâ was true, it was no doubt related by Ibn ḤayyÄn to illustrate how Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs association with lions fulfilled the qualities of the ideal (Solomonic) ruler: in the same way that the builder of Mshatta kept stone lions near his throne, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn used living lions to symbolise his royal authority.
Located in the palace gardens, not far from the majlis, the lions on the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins may have conveyed this same idea. As discussed in Chapter 4, it is also possible that al-MadÄ«nat al-ZÄhiraâs precincts contained a menagerie, where al-Manṣūr housed the fierce beasts, including a tiger, which he received as part of ZÄ«rÄ« ibn Ê¿Aá¹iyyaâs gift â the ḥÄjib may thus have lived in physical proximity to such creatures, in the same way that the caliph had done. In art, the lion is most frequently depicted in combat with a bull, an image that originated in the Iranian world where it symbolised the astronomical conflict between Leo and Taurus.10 It is this motif that most frequently occurred in the Islamic East, where it was used, for example, on Buyid donative coinage;11 it is also the lion-bull motif that features on the Cordoban ivories produced under caliphal patronage, for example on the al-MughÄ«ra pyxis (Figure 171), or the David Collection casket.12 However, where the lion-bull motif represents a combat between two equally strong animals, the Ê¿Ämirid objects feature the very different image of the unequal struggle between lion and gazelle. Indeed, as far as we can tell from the surviving objects, this motif first seems to have become popular in al-Andalus under the Ê¿Ämirids, beginning in 987 with al-Manṣūrâs basin (Chapter 7: 1.2).
The lion-gazelle motif has been variously interpreted as having the same cosmological and pseudo-Zoroastrian religious symbolism as the lion-bull combat,13 or as having no more than a talismanic or apotropaic function.14 The Ê¿Ämirid use of the lion-gazelle can be compared to the mosaic in the dÄ«wÄn/apodyterium of the Syrian Umayyad bath-complex at Khirbat al-Mafjar,15 which is perhaps the most famous example of this motif. Here the depiction of a large fruiting tree is flanked on the left by two gazelles grazing peacefully, and on the right by the motif of a lion attacking a third gazelle. This scene has likewise been interpreted in a number of ways: as symbolising the peaceful dÄr al-islÄm as opposed to the dÄr al-ḥarb, the realm of war outside the bounds of Islam;16 as evoking the erotic meaning of the lion-gazelle topos in love poetry;17 or as representing the âgenerosity-ruthlessness doubletâ, one of the central virtues of Islamic princes as praised by their panegyrists, in which the ruler shows generosity towards his friends and ruthlessness towards his foes.18
Medallion with lion-bull combat, pyxis made for al-Mughīra, dated 968, ivory; Musée du Louvre, inv. OA 4068
© 2005 Musée du Louvre / Raphaël Chipault
These interpretations open up a variety of possible meanings for the use of the lion-gazelle motif in Ê¿Ämirid art. However, it is clear from the external evidence of the âpoetic testimonyâ that one meaning is paramount. In the panegyric poems composed for the Ê¿Ämirids by Ibn DarrÄj, which are exactly contemporary with the surviving Ê¿Ämirid objects, the lion is one of the most repetitive images, with a clear and consistent equivalence to their role as mujÄhidÅ«n. Significantly, this association of the lion with mujÄhid seems to have developed under Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III. The language of Ibn ḤayyÄnâs Muqtabis shows that the lion was inherent in metaphorical descriptions of the Umayyad army, in both poetry and prose, and there are numerous references to the army as âbraveâ or âfierce lionsâ.19 The most explicit passage occurs in a letter which Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn sent to his Berber allies, asking them to prepare troops for a campaign against the Fatimids. The men he wants should be
âpeople of pure intent, sincere will and firm courage, who will not be frightened of rivals, and a squadron of whom will not be frightened of an opposing army, like lions which advance or dragons which devour, seasoned to war and accustomed to its vicissitudes, like sons to their mother.â20
As we will discuss below, like the heraldic eagle the lion was carried on banners by the Umayyad army, and in this way may have come to represent them visually and metaphorically.
However, there are few surviving instances in caliphal poetry of the lion as an explicit symbol of the caliph himself, which is how it is employed under the Ê¿Ämirids. Where the image occurs, its meaning is clear: Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn is âa fierce lion which runs to the fight, or perhaps even more braveâ,21 and in the following verses, composed on the occasion of the first blood-letting Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn underwent after moving to al-ZahrÄʾ, the image takes on the resonance of a title:
âFrom him is perfumed the scent of honours and of generosity, and its fragrance reaches the most remote horizons.
The lion of the caliphate (asad al-khilÄfa) dwells among his cubs, when he walks round his territory and in his dwelling,
And the perfume of his blood-letting oozes out, its aroma spreads out over the whole earth.â22
The designation here of Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn as âthe lion of the caliphateâ recalls the epithet which the military exploits of his ancestor, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn I, earned him â the âfalcon of the Qurayshâ (á¹£aqr quraysh).23 However, after his defeat at the Battle of Alhándega, in 327/938â9, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III never again led an army into the field, nor did al-Ḥakam after his accession to the caliphate. This would explain the relative scarcity of lions in the poetry composed for the second caliph: a study of the twenty-six panegyrics included in al-RaÌziÌâs Annals, many of which are very long, reveals only four instances of lion imagery, whereas the thirty-three surviving Ê¿Ämirid panegyrics by Ibn DarraÌj yield twenty-nine instances. Of course this kind of comparison is not an exact science, dictated as it is by issues of survival, but it is clear that in the contemporary poetic imagery, the lion was a favoured metaphor for al-Manṣūr and his sons.
Furthermore, there is always a suggestion of distance between al-Ḥakam and the lion: see, for example, these verses from a poem by al-Muhannad, composed for the ʿĪd al-Fiá¹r celebrations of 363/973â4, which fell soon after the defeat of Ḥasan ibn QÄnÅ«n, the major military victory of al-Ḥakamâs career:
âYour lions killed their lions; your strong lion-cubs [killed their] strong lion-cubs.â24
These lines are significant for the way in which the lion here does not represent al-Ḥakam himself, but rather his victorious general, GhÄlib. Though a number of panegyrics in honour of military victories are sung to al-Ḥakam during the course of al-RaÌziÌâs Annals, lion images are in general conspicuous by their absence.
In contrast, the lion is one of the most frequent images in the panegyrics composed for the Ê¿Ämirids by Ibn DarrÄj. An interesting verse in poem 119, l. 5, quells any doubt over the meaning of this metaphor: composed as al-Manṣūr departed on campaign, the poet sings of the glories he will achieve, saying, âhis enemies will later tell that lions are menâ. Some examples of the image of al-Manṣūr as the lion of the battlefield are as follows. On the occasion of the ḥÄjibâs campaign against ZÄ«rÄ« ibn Ê¿Aá¹iyya, the poet warns
âLet him who wants to kill [al-Manṣūr] understand that his mother will want to bury him, because he is going to confront a strong lion.â25
In similar language, on the occasion of a campaign against GarcÃa Fernández of Castile, Ibn DarrÄj addresses the enemy:
âWhere will you be able to save yourself when the lion of the lairs, the protector al-Manṣūr, has come to you enraged?â26
On the ḥÄjibâs return from a campaign against León in 995, the poet praises him,
âYou are like a lion which risks its life in battle.â27
His sons are also identified with lions. In a poem dedicated to al-Muáºaffar, after mopping-up campaigns against GarcÃa Fernández circa 994, at which Ibn DarrÄj was himself present, his lust for the fight is described as follows (l. 23):
âThe lion of the forest, who does not leave or return except in search of glory, runs at [the ranks of swords] â¦â28
And when HishÄm granted Ê¿Abd al-Malik his laqab:
âYou were called al-Muáºaffar when you were triumphant,
and you had attacked your enemies like a fierce lion.â29
On the occasion circa 997 when al-Manṣūr executed fifty Navarrese knights who had violated the peace by making incursions into al-Andalus, Sanchuelo himself, aged only fourteen, killed one of his own relatives; in his praise, Ibn DarrÄj exclaims,
âthe vizier was like a lion â who could be his father, except the Ê¿Ämirid?â
and later, in the same poem, the relative he executed was
âa lion which fell at the burn of the gaze of a lion-cub.â30
EchevarrÃa notes that the increasing reference to al-Manṣūrâs sons in the panegyric of this period, especially that associated with the Santiago campaign, began to prepare the way for the dynastic succession of the ḥijÄba.31
By the early 990s, therefore, the equivalence between lions and the Ê¿Ämirid ḥūjjab was firmly embedded in Ibn DarrÄjâs poetry. But such an image would only have gained currency through the extent to which it pleased the panegyricâs addressee. Indeed, a poem which al-Manṣūr is said to have composed himself might suggest that the lion was part of the Ê¿Ämiridsâ self-image from a slightly earlier period. It is undated, but it is tempting to relate its metaphor of construction to his architectural projects of the late 980s:
âIn person, as a magnanimous nobleman should, I have faced the gravest perils, and had nothing with me but a brave heart, an excellent lance, and a sharp and polished sword.
Launching into combat troops of warriors, veritable lions which clash with other lions in their lairs, in person I have led leaders of all kinds and done battle until I found myself triumphant.
It is not a new edifice which I have constructed, but I have enlarged that which Ê¿Abd al-Malik and Ê¿Ämir built.
We [the Ê¿Ämirids] have by means of our exploits rejuvenated a nobility which we possess from long ago MaÊ¿Äfir.â32
In these verses, al-Manṣūr is concerned with establishing his right to the ḥijÄba, emphasizing the noble status he inherited from his ancestors in order to justify his elevated position. The reference to MaÊ¿Äfir here stresses the Ê¿Ämiridsâ Arab origins and their ancestorsâ participation in the original conquest of al-Andalus â Hugh Kennedy makes the interesting point that, as a result, al-Manṣūrâs âfamily could claim to have been in al-Andalus longer than the Umayyads themselvesâ.33 Al-Manṣūr adduces two further points to the main argument of his nobility: his military victories, symbolised by the lion metaphor, and a tantalising reference to his architectural patronage, especially his extension to the Cordoba Mosque in the line, âIt is not a new edifice which I have constructed, but [one] I have enlarged â¦â
These dual aspects of his ânobilityâ remind us of the decoration of his marble basin, whose two long sides visualise these same sentiments. It could be said that in both the poem he composed and the object he commissioned, lions and architecture â standing for his role in jihad, and his cultural patronage â are presented as the two pillars of al-Manṣūrâs particular virtues as ḥÄjib. In fact, I would argue that the iconography of Ê¿Ämirid art is precisely concerned with representing its patrons as fulfilling the virtues of the ideal ruler â his physical courage and his courtly refinement. Because of this, the lion metaphor seems to have been deliberately emphasised, artistically and poetically, as a symbol of Ê¿Ämirid self-expression. That the propaganda worked is clear from its contemporary reactions: compare this verse, written by al-MuṣḥafÄ« during the period of his persecution by al-Manṣūr, which contains an interesting inversion of the lion image:
âFortune has made me fearsome to lions themselves, but now it is I whom she makes tremble before the fox.â34
The force of this slander of al-Manṣūr lies in the way it questions the Ê¿Ämirid self-image: the ḥÄjib was a fox, not a lion as he claimed, and al-MuṣḥafÄ« should know, having encountered so many real lions in his career.
The natural complement to the image of the âconquering lionâ is the gazelle, precisely because of its ancient poetic relationship in the type of lyric poems that Doris Behrens-Abouseif cites in her interpretation of the Khirbat al-Mafjar mosaic.35 However, this does not imply that the pairing of the two in Ê¿Ämirid art represents an erotic motif. Rather, the weaker animal represents the conquered enemy, who is also paraded before us in the panegyrics sung on the occasion of the defeated foeâs ceremonial visits to the Ê¿Ämirid court. While, in the poetry, the lion frequently occurs as a single image, the weaker animals usually occur in combination with a fierce animal that terrorises them. The pairings conform to a logical pattern: fierce birds such as falcons and eagles are repeatedly combined with cranes and partridges,36 whereas the lion is most usually combined with varieties of deer. Thus, al-Ḥakamâs enemies
âclimb to inhabit the mountains
and make themselves the neighbours of ravens and antelopes, and declare war on [him] â¦
With the fury of a lion who gathers together his cubs, [al-Ḥakam] sends against him [Ḥasan ibn QÄnÅ«n] one part of his troops
which, as thick as a cloud of locusts, covers the mountains and the face of the earth â¦â37
By making themselves their âneighboursâ, al- Ḥakamâs enemies metaphorically become âravens and antelopesâ, terrorised by the lion of the caliphâs fury. In the poem composed by Ibn DarrÄj on the occasion of al-Manṣūrâs campaign against the Christian coalition in 1000, the Ê¿Ämirid troops are represented as lions and the conquered enemy as
âherds of wild gazelles who have turned their cheeks away from the battle, showing eyes in which can be seen their confusion and hunger.â38
It is also likely that the imagery of Ibn DarrÄjâs poems reflects the language of al-Manṣūrâs own rhetoric. During this same campaign, part of the Umayyad army fled in the face of the overwhelming odds. Ana EchevarrÃa cites a long address with which al-Manṣūr castigated them: this has survived in the form of a letter sent to the troops, which their generals read out to them â the text of this letter must have been recorded by Ibn ḤayyÄn (whose father was present at the battle). In one part of the address, al-Manṣūr rebukes the troops:
âSo you fled like a herd of gazelles before the lions of the forest and you were scared away, terrorised, like ostriches before hunters. Oh how you have covered yourselves in ignominy!â39
However, the most explicit âimageâ is provided by a living metaphor: during al-Manṣūrâs campaign against GarcÃa Fernández of Castile in 995, á¹¢ÄÊ¿id al-BaghdÄdÄ« captured a gazelle and symbolically named it âGharsiyyaâ. He brought the animal, still alive, to al-Manṣūr, along with âan elegant qaṣīdaâ in which he expressed the wish that the same might happen to its namesake:
âO refuge of the terrified, asylum of the persecuted, comfort to the vilified!
O string of virtues and repository of every brilliant quality! Thou art the refuge of the needy.
A slave [of thine] whom thou didst take by the hand and didst raise from his station, presents thee with a stag.
I named it Gharsiyya and I sent it to thee [with a rope around its neck], that the same may happen with its namesake [the Christian king].
Shouldst thou accept [this my present], I would consider it as the greatest favour that a generous man can bestow.â40
The living metaphor was made real when, that very day, GarcÃa Fernández was captured while hunting by al-Manṣūrâs cavalry. As Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III maintained a symbolic physical association with real lions in order to terrorise his people, so it can be said that the metaphorical Ê¿Ämirid lion made of his enemies real gazelles.
The Ê¿Ämiridsâ use of the lion image signified a deliberate intensification of a standard element in the vocabulary of panegyric. The relative infrequency with which it was used under Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn and al-Ḥakam may be due to the fact that, after 939, neither caliph personally led an army into the field. As noted above, it was a source of pride to al-Manṣūr that his military exploits were conducted âin personâ, and as discussed in Chapter 1, his role as mujÄhid played a fundamental part in legitimising his position as de facto ruler of al-Andalus. Al-Manṣūr saw himself as the warrior par excellence, hence the lion par excellence.
It is likely that the Ê¿Ämiridsâ use of the lion image could have evoked resonances of the first caliph, whose association with lions was made controversial by his use of live lions in punishment, and visually striking by his construction of a massive lion fountain at his Munyat al-NÄÊ¿Å«rah, discussed below. As we have frequently mentioned, al-Manṣūr imitated in many respects a model of legitimation that was established by Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III in the articulation of his caliphate; perhaps the Ê¿Ämirids adopted the lion motif precisely because it resonated of that caliphâs authority. However, by introducing the gazelle, this image differed from those the caliphs themselves used: their ivories bore the lion-bull motif. Al-Manṣūr may thus have intended the image of the lion-gazelle to serve as an Ê¿Ämirid symbol, as âa meaningful emblem of political powerâ.41 This would explain its repeated use on Ê¿Ämirid objects across different media. Its use on the ivories later made for the DhÅ«âl-NÅ«nids â such as the Silos casket (Figure 174)42 â may be a deliberate evocation of this Ê¿Ämirid emblem, one of the ways in which they referred to Cordoba in their attempt at legitimising themselves (Conclusion).
A final point concerns the function of the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins as the reservoirs for fountains. In Islamic art more broadly, the iconographic association between lions and water is frequent.43 We know from poetic descriptions as well as surviving examples that lions were popular as fountain heads: the murmuring noise of the water passing through its internal pipes and out through its mouth gave rise to a poetic topos of the lion roaring, as in al-JazÄ«rÄ«âs poem (quoted at the start of this chapter). In fact, there is a greater significance to this association between lions and water: while, again, this seems to have an ancient and possibly cosmic origin,44 the symbolism is in fact very simple â of the rulerâs generosity and ability to provide for his people. The rulerâs construction of aqueducts and water infrastructure, to bring water from mountains to cities, was considered an act of great piety. It was also to the ruler whom the people looked to provide rain in times of drought: it was incumbent on him to authorise a special prayer (istisqÄʾ), which was recited by his designated representative in one of the two maá¹£allas outside Cordoba.45 This is expressed in the verses sung to al-Ḥakam by Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan al-ṬubnÄ« on the occasion of ʿĪd al-Aá¸á¸¥Ä in 361/972:
âOn this holy day the rain comes to pay you obeisance;
Even if, instead of the rain, your generosity had watered the earth, she would have been forever safe from drought â¦â46
It is due to the rulerâs capacity as bringer of rain that water also became an important topos in poetic imagery, especially in relation to what Julie Meisami has styled the âgenerosity-ruthlessness doubletâ. For example, Ibn DarrÄj says of al-Manṣūr that âyou give more gifts than the torrential rainâ;47 that âhe has irrigated those who desire his favour like an abundant rainfallâ;48 and that âthe rain which you have made fall / has abundantly irrigated Islamâ.49 On the other hand, however, the ruler can turn this power against his enemies: â[al-Manṣūr] is for Islam a beneficial rainfall, and for heresy he is a destructive stormâ.50 As he provides water for his people, so he can take it from his enemies: âHe did not leave ⦠a single place among his enemies for them to drinkâ.51 Furthermore, in keeping with the increasingly martial aesthetic discernible in Ê¿Ämirid poetry, this image can be given a macabre spin: for example, á¹¢ÄÊ¿id al-BaghdÄdÄ« talks of al-Manṣūr âmaking the countryside fertile with the deaths of polytheistsâ;52 and the image of the land irrigated by enemiesâ blood pervades the poems of Ibn DarrÄj.53
The use of lions in the decoration of waterworks is therefore also symbolic of the rulerâs virtues as presented in the poetic imagery. A lion was among the gold statues which Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III commissioned for his Byzantine fountain basin (Chapter 2), though he also constructed a much more striking visual relationship between lions and water:
âAt the beginning of this year [329/940â1], al-NÄá¹£ir finished the construction of the extraordinary man-made aqueduct that brought fresh water from the mountains to the Qaá¹£r al-NÄÊ¿Å«rah on the west side of Cordoba. Water flowed through fabricated channels on a fantastic arrangement of connecting arches, emptying into a large pool at the edge of which was a lion, enormous in size, unique in design, and fearful in appearance ⦠It was plated with gold and its eyes were two brilliantly sparkling jewels. Water entered through the rear of the lion and was spewed into the pool. It was dazzling to behold in its splendour and magnificence and its copious outpouring, and the palaceâs entire range of gardens were irrigated by its juices which flowed over the grounds and the surrounding area.â54
This massive golden lion was thus a prominent and highly-visible statement of Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs royalty, his power to convert the natural landscape, and his fulfilment of the ideals of rulership, in âbringingâ water. However, this was not a public aqueduct â it was for his private use in the Munyat al-NÄÊ¿Å«rah. In discussing Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs pre-MadÄ«nat al-ZahrÄʾ palaces, Ruggles observes that they âconsumed a spectacular amount of waterâ, and that âthe role of water in giving life to the gardens ⦠of the Munyat al-NÄÊ¿Å«rah was celebrated through these displays of abundanceâ.55 Was it, rather, a celebration of the fact that Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs power as caliph was so great that he could provide ample water for his people, and still abundantly irrigate his own palace and gardens? Was the golden lion from which the waters of the aqueduct debouched a visualisation of the quasi-title of the âlion of the caliphateâ which he had received in poetry? Though they are smaller in scale, the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins capture something of the sentiment of this aqueduct. Al-Manṣūr, through his construction of a new cistern and ablutions pavilions at the Cordoba Mosque, demonstrated his ability to fulfil the rulerâs role in providing water for the cityâs residents. The basinâs large size and impressive appearance underlines the relationship between lions and water, and possibly visualises the poetic role of the ruler as rainmaker.
This was a genuine concern at this period. Manzano discusses the âmany episodes of droughtâ, whose âterrible effectsâ were mitigated by handouts from the state.56 As we saw in Chapter 4, al-Manṣūr had granaries and mills constructed at al-MadÄ«nat al-ZÄhira, to allow the city to be self-sufficient in the supply of food during times of hardship, and as discussed in Chapter 5, he constructed an enormous new cistern at the Cordoba Mosque. Indeed, during a âterrible famineâ throughout al-Andalus, the Maghrib and IfrÄ«qiya, which began in 379/989â990 and lasted three years, âal-Manṣūr ordered that every day ⦠should be made 22,000 loaves of bread, which were distributed amongst the poorâ.57 He âbehaved as no king before him had ever acted, and made kind gestures: he helped the Muslims, fed the weak, waived the tithes, buried the dead and succoured the livingâ. Significantly, the description of al-Manṣūrâs generous behaviour during this time is comparable to that of al-Ḥakam during an earlier famine, in 353/964â5, and they are both credited with caring personally for the needy.58 On this occasion, âal-Ḥakam took care of the sick and needy, whether in Cordoba, its suburbs or al-ZahrÄʾ. He gave them nourishment and he thus saved their livesâ.
This discussion raises the possibility that the use of the lion image by Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III, and by al-Manṣūr in combination with the gazelle, represented âa meaningful emblem of [their] political powerâ,59 that is, it functioned as a type of dynastic, even heraldic, emblem which signified that patron. In this way, al-NÄá¹£ir might have visualised the quasi-title the âlion of the caliphateâ which he had received in poetry, while the presence of the lion-gazelle âemblemâ identified particular objects as Ê¿Ämirid. The particular way in which they are consistently rendered on these basins might evoke the designs on the military banners of the Umayyad armies, an idea which will be discussed in detail below. The addition of fountain heads that were also in the form of lions underlined the lion imagery carved onto the basins, making it even more powerful.
1.2 Nature Imagery
While scenes of violent combat might call most attention in Ê¿Ämirid art, it is significant that a completely contrasting aesthetic coexists on these same objects: that is, the abundance of images of nature, which form compositions in themselves as well as the backdrop to more representational scenes. Particularly favoured are stylised representations of plants and flowers: the basins made for al-Manṣūr and Ê¿Abd al-Malik both dedicate one long side â over a metre of decorative surface â to floral decoration (Figures 114, 130). Certain aspects of the nature imagery from caliphal and Ê¿Ämirid panegyric poetry have already been mentioned, since this formed an essential element in the poetic vocabulary of the rulerâs virtues. The full spectrum of poetic nature imagery encompassed the entire natural world, both on the earth and in the sky, and an important aspect relates to the natural universe, employing metaphors of light, the stars, planets, sun and moon to describe the rulerâs attributes. I will concentrate here on the depictions of cultivated nature, which can be considered as reflections of the poetic image of the fertility that the rulerâs generosity brings to the land. This includes the natural backdrop to more representational scenes, such as the garden majlis on the Pamplona casket.
A natural consequence of the rulerâs ability to bring water, most often in the form of rain, is that the land becomes fertile and flourishing. This is a favourite topos of Ibn DarrÄjâs panegyrics to al-Manṣūr, as is its complement of the desert as symbolic of the rulerâs withdrawal of generosity. The sentiment is clearly illustrated in his line, âThe universe is flourishing under your reignâ;60 and in the following short nawriyya:
âHow pleasant is the timidity of the apples, adorned with varieties of flowers,
Surrounded by jonquils like eyes that gaze from under the eyebrows of an awoken lover,
As if the colour these apples had blushed with shame was like the red colour of the moonâs dawnlight appearing bit by bit.
In the diwan of the king al-Manṣūr they are fresh as if they had been nourished by his abundant generosity.â61
Such a blossoming of the natural world, as a result of the rulerâs generosity, also gives rise to the topos that his protection is like the shade of a tree.62 The two are combined in the verse,
âWithout your blessings what shade will surround me, and without your gifts from which trough will I draw water?â63
Elsewhere images of rain and fertility are linked to the rulerâs generosity: for example, Ibn DarrÄj says, âYou have watered my soul with the generosity of your giftsâ, and later talks of âthe fruits of the gifts which you have given meâ;64 similarly, âA well-timed rainfall has come to bring life to the world ⦠/ The earth has dressed up in holiday clothes â¦â.65 In turn, the good ruler, who brings rain and allows the earth to flourish, can expect to find his way to the ultimate garden, in Paradise.66
Such images pervade Ibn DarrÄjâs poetry, though it must be noted that, unlike the poetic use of figurative motifs, this was not a new or particularly intensified phenomenon under the Ê¿Ämirids: metaphors of nature are probably the most abundant image in caliphal poetry, and some of the topoi we have noted here from Ibn DarrÄjâs poems were obviously perpetuated from those used by caliphal panegyrists. For example, the following poems in honour of al-Ḥakam:
âJustice reigns, Islam shines, and the branch of the Empire turns green and bears its fruits â¦â67
Or,
âWith his face he has made the smiling spring return before its season,
And gardens and flowers have returned to the earth, and a fertility which has completely eclipsed sterility â¦â68
Lastly,
âDo you not see that God has put him in charge of his earth, and he [HishÄm] has made fertile any uncultivated land?
He fights sterility with gifts â¦â69
In general, however, these images of nature function as metaphors of generosity or other virtuous attributes of the ruler: they evoke the concerns of a people who essentially lived off the land.70 The tenth century saw an upsurge in the construction of munyas, which were essentially countryside retreats surrounded by orchard gardens.71 These gardens were not necessarily cultivated so that the munya would be self-sufficient, but rather so that their owners could display their wealth and status by surrounding themselves with âorganised natureâ. As we saw in Chapter 3, the ideal locus amoenus for a wine party was an environment that evoked nature but was not âânaturalâ natureâ,72 as better suited the tastes of the urbanised society of tenth-century Cordoba. This âcaused the city dwellers to [rediscover] nature in much the same way that modern man goes to the countryside on weekends to avoid the maddening rush of city lifeâ.73 The popularity of poetic images of nature therefore reflects an âurban and cultured appreciation of the nature that could be found in the gardens and palatial residences of Cordobaâ.74 As this appreciation developed, the theme of flowers and nature accrued in cultural significance, so that poetic anthologies came to be given titles which implicitly likened the book to a garden in spring, full of blossoming flowers â that is, the floral poems within it.75 Prose writers even gave such titles to works of history and geography, calling the chapters âflowersâ.76
The poetic use of these natural metaphors is embodied visually in the contemporary art, in the backdrops of cultivated plants and flowers which frame the more primary scenes of animal and human figures. The use of nature as a backdrop is symbolic of all that is right in the state, since it resonates of the rulerâs poetic role to make the land fertile, and also evokes the very real fertility which the objectâs viewer can observe in their natural surroundings. However, though nature plays an important secondary role in such scenes, the main visual message is contained in the image which the nature frames: this is perhaps most clearly exemplified in the ivory pyxides â especially the Braga pyxis (Chapter 7: 2.2, Figure 15) â whose architectonic form and vegetal background decoration evoke âpavilions amid lush gardensâ.77 While the gardens are essential for the setting, the important thing is the pavilion.
Thus the arcade of three lobed arches is the primary message of the back of al-Manṣūrâs basin, though its apparent setting in a blooming garden probably provides a significant supplementary meaning. This arcade alludes to al-Manṣūrâs role as a patron of architecture â could it represent the idealised locus amoenus, the physical setting of the poetic majÄlis which played such an important role in the legitimation of his rule? Or does it relate to another architectural project, which al-Manṣūr would have wanted to commemorate in perpetuity â his construction of the Cordoba Mosque extension? Though the images are (deliberately?) multivalent, I would argue for the latter as the primary meaning. Most simply, this basin was commissioned in the same year as the mosque construction began â it is the only (extant) exception to the âruleâ that the manufacture of luxury objects did not coincide with major architectural projects, and vice versa (Chapter 6). Secondly, the fatÄ al-kabÄ«r al-Ê¿ÄmirÄ« who is named as the director of this commission was Khalaf or Khayrah, both of whom also worked on al-Manṣūrâs mosque extension. There was very likely to have been a personnel connection between the two projects, via the workshop that produced this basin and the decoration for the mosque. In terms of the decoration itself, the lobed arches evoke those which al-Manṣūr inserted into the mosqueâs internal arcading as space-filling devices (Chapter 5). More particularly, though, they evoke the blind arcades of the gates which he built on the eastern façade, and the epigraphy around three sides of the basinâs periphery evokes the framing inscriptions of those gates (Figures 68â74, 82). It seems highly likely, therefore, that the basin was a special commission by al-Manṣūr to commemorate his extension to the mosque, an act which was so symbolic to him that he preserved it in poetry as well (as we saw above). Lastly, the nature imagery that flourishes on this basin encapsulates al-Manṣūrâs sovereign generosity at undertaking such an important and pious work for the Cordoban people â the visual embodiment, in fact, of Ibn DarrÄjâs verse, âThe universe is flourishing under your reignâ.78 It also evokes what Grabar has called the âeffectâ of the mihrab within the mosque itself: its chamber form makes it appear as âa gate, open towards the invisible or the unknownâ â open, in fact, towards Paradise, represented in poetry and the QurʾÄn as the ultimate garden.79
In contrast to the use on al-Manṣūrâs basin of natural decoration in a significant but supplementary role, on the back of al-Muáºaffarâs basin, flowers and nature comprise the only decoration. The decoration of these two basins thus stands in the same relation to each other as do nature metaphors to nawriyyÄt â those short poems that embody the purest expression of nature imagery. Consisting of a few verses in description of a particular flower and ending with a verse of praise to the addressee,80 they indulge in descriptions of nature for its own sake, rather than illustrating a larger concept, as the nature metaphors do.
As discussed in Chapter 3, the genre of floral description began to develop under al-Manṣūr, but it was a poetic form particularly favoured by al-Muáºaffar. Ibn ḤayyÄn tells us that
â[he] asked his poets, in some springtimes during his reign, [that they compose] poetic fragments [on the theme of] white flowers, about manzÅ«r (stocks), and about zahra (orange blossom) and other types of flowers. He was very fond of this [type of poetry] and continually sought out variations on this theme. [He] liked his singers to introduce [flowers] into their songs. People wrote copiously [about] them, bearing in mind the beauty and rarity of the subject. And among the [poems] that he accepted were the compositions of á¹¢ÄÊ¿id al-BaghdÄdÄ«, his drinking companion (nadÄ«m) â¦â81
Such poems came to be favoured as âvehicles of praiseâ, and sometimes served to introduce a longer, panegyric poem.82 Poets presented them as gifts to their patron, like a bouquet of flowers.83 This genre of floral poetry embodied the late tenth-century preference for ânature in a controlled stateâ: whereas ordinary speech in Arabic is nathr, âscattered wordsâ, poetry is naáºm, âarranged wordsâ,84 and the words (metaphorically, flowers) of the floral poem are arranged to symbolise a carefully cultivated garden. It seems possible, then, that we can read in the structure â horizontal, like the verses of a poem? â of the four bands of flowers on al-Muáºaffarâs basin the âpetrificationâ of a nawriyya, of verses composed in his favourite poetic genre. Such a basin would have been commissioned by him to adorn a garden in the private reaches of his palace, where he would have gathered with his nudamÄʾ and listened to such floral images being conjured in their poetry. This interplay between furnishing and environment, between artistic and poetic images, is one of the noteworthy characteristics of Ê¿Ämirid art (Chapter 7) â it would likewise have been noted and admired by al-Muáºaffarâs nudamÄʾ, and perhaps even served as the springboard for further literary creativity. However, the ways in which this repeats the arrangement of the decoration on al-Manṣūrâs basin leads to the consideration that it signified more than that. The repetition on Ê¿Abd al-Malikâs basin of the lion-gazelle motif may well imply that this image functioned as a dynastic emblem, identifying the patron as an Ê¿Ämirid by virtue of his military role and exploits. If this is the case, then it can be argued that the other side of the basins represented another symbolic aspect of each Ê¿Ämiridâs rule: if for al-Manṣūr it was his mosque extension, for al-Muáºaffar it may have been his love of nawriyyÄt. These stand for the broader cultural interests of the particular patrons: architecture for al-Manṣūr, literature for al-Muáºaffar.
The primacy of literature at al-Muáºaffarâs court is probably also represented on another object made for the same patron: the Pamplona casket. As we have mentioned (Chapter 7), eight out of this objectâs nine figurative panels represent scenes of violent combat. However, they are balanced on the front of the casket by a peaceful scene of an outdoor gathering. Its three eight-lobed medallions contain ââcourtlyâ scenesâ that âconstitute segments of one larger sceneâ, which Cynthia Robinson has read as âa visual representation of the sensual, intimate, literary and â above all â pleasurable gatherings which [were] a major focus of court literatureâ under the Ê¿Ämirids.85 As discussed in Chapter 7, it is likely that here we see al-Muáºaffar and his nudamÄʾ gathered at a poetic majlis in the gardens of his palace, listening to the poetry sung by the musicians at the centre, and enjoying wine and the scent of flowers, that will no doubt lead to further poetic improvisation. This leisure activity is earned through the success of al-Muáºaffarâs military exploits â his legitimising role as mujÄhid â visualised on the back of the casket in which he fends off the attack of two lions, and underscored by the scenes of human and animal combat on the casketâs remaining panels.
The coexistence on Ê¿Ämirid objects of such contrasting images â peaceful nature and belligerent combat â was a deliberate iconographic choice. Moreover, it was a choice that implied the ways in which the Ê¿Ämirids wished to represent themselves. It has also been observed that the poetic equivalents of these images are important concepts in the vocabulary of the virtues of the ideal ruler. In fact, it is these contrasting but complementary virtues (the âgenerosity-ruthlessness doubletâ again) which the iconography of all these objects encapsulates: it is not quite the dichotomy of dÄr al-islÄm/dÄr al-ḥarb that Ettinghausen read in the Khirbat al-Mafjar mosaic, but to an extent that scene may evoke the same combination of the rulerâs physical courage â which he used for the defense of Islam â and his courtly refinement, epitomised through his cultural patronage, which we see encapsulated on the Ê¿Ämirid objects. It should be remembered that the development and maintenance of a flourishing court is only possible in an atmosphere of security â indeed, that courtliness is a luxury of peacetime. The iconography of these Ê¿Ämirid objects thus represents two sides of the same coin, and tells us much about the ways in which the ḥujjÄb saw themselves as fulfilling the ideals of rulership. This interpretation will be further elaborated below.
1.3 The âHeraldicâ Eagle (Figures 116, 132, 158)
In contrast to the motifs discussed above â which, though they seem to have clear meanings in this specific local context, were nevertheless quite common elements in the artistic and poetic vocabulary of rulers throughout the Islamic world â the splayed eagle, another of the prominent images on Ê¿Ämirid objects (seen on the three large marble basins, the Pamplona casket, a version of it on the Suaire de Saint Lazare), was not. While the image of the bird of prey (whether eagle or falcon) alighting on a weaker bird or animal is relatively common in the art of al-Andalus both before and during the Ê¿Ämirid period, there is an important formal distinction which allows the differentiation of two types: the bird alighting is usually represented with its body in profile and its wings uplifted on either side â I will call this the âprofileâ pose; in contrast, the âfrontalâ eagle maintains a hieratic and impossible pose, with its full-frontal body, legs and wings splayed straight out to its sides, and its head turned in profile. The two types can be compared on the lid of the Pamplona casket, where the âprofileâ type fills the central medallion of the topmost plaque (Figure 124A), while two âfrontalâ eagles occur at the extreme right and left sides of the back slope of the lid (Figure 124B).
The visual models for this motif are not problematic to identify. If, as suggested in Chapter 6, Andalusi carvers at this period were looking to locally sourced examples of Classical and Late Antique art for their models and inspiration, there was no shortage of eagles â the quintessential Imperial emblem â to choose from in the region that had once been the capital of Roman Hispania. One such example is the late second-century marble altar dedicated to Venus Victrix from Mérida, now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid (Figure 98). Designers of Ê¿Ämirid objects might also have looked to textile models, and it is remarkable how similar stylistically the eagles on the basins are to contemporary Byzantine silks. Particularly close comparisons are the silks used for the shroud of Saint Germain (d. 448), from the church of Saint Eusèbe, Auxerre (Figure 87), and the chasuble of Saint Albuin (975â1006) at Brixen/Bressanone.86 John Beckwith supposed that these silks were produced at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries, since an inventory mentions that the Auxerre shroud was donated c. 1030 by Hugues de Châlons; it also describes it as casula ⦠purpurea grandes aquilas coloris coccinei intextas, âa purple chasuble with large eagles woven in a red colourâ. It must have been at this time that the silk was translated into the tomb of Saint Germain. However, it is certain that the eagle was being used in Byzantine textiles well before this: in 938, the Emperor Romanos Lecapenos (r. 920â944) sent to the Abbasid caliph al-RÄá¸Ä« bi-llÄh (r. 934â940) a gift which included âseven silk carpets (sufar dÄ«bÄj) for eating off, made of silk and decorated with images of eagles in two coloursâ.87 It is thus probable that the datable eagle silks from Auxerre and Brixen came from a well-established industry, rather than indicating the beginning of a tradition.
Byzantine textiles decorated with such motifs must have existed in al-Andalus: as we have seen, Byzantine embassies came to Cordoba during the reigns of all three caliphs, and no doubt brought such imperial gifts with them. Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III seems to have been in possession of at least one Byzantine imperial textile by the 930s as he redeployed it in his own gifts: the gift to MÅ«sÄ ibn AbÄ« al-Ê¿Äfiyya in 934 included a âlarge silver caliphal perfume chest ⦠whose interior was lined with purple fabricâ.88 Such silks may have been highly visible at the court: we know that the caliph displayed prestigious or meaningful gifts, such as the great pearl he had received from the Emperor Leo VI (r. 886â912) that hung in his throne hall (Chapter 2).89 During the reception of John of Gorze in 956, the caliphal majlis was so completely covered with sumptuous textiles that âthe walls and the floor seemed the sameâ.90 On such an occasion, calculated as it was to overawe, it is likely that prized Byzantine textiles, received during diplomatic encounters and thus pointed indicators of the caliphâs imperial connections, would have been displayed. âRobes of rÅ«mÄ« brocadeâ were mentioned among the textile gifts which al-Manṣūr distributed after the Santiago campaign (Chapter 6), suggesting that the Ê¿Ämirids also had access to Byzantine silks. However, the eagle on Byzantine imperial silks is a lone creature: it never features smaller animals grasped in its talons, which is how the design invariably occurs on Ê¿Ämirid objects. Perhaps this represents an Islamicising of the Byzantine image, absorbing this royal creature into the more familiar repertoire of animal combats, which also accords with the martial sense of Ê¿Ämirid objects. Another Islamicising feature seems to be that the eagles are rendered with pointed ears. As discussed in Chapter 7, it has been suggested that, because they have pointed ears, these large birds are not eagles at all, but instead represent frontally depicted griffins, which are represented with pointed ears on Roman sarcophagi (Figure 97). However, griffins in al-Andalus tend to be depicted with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The viewer of this motif on the basins undoubtedly sees an eagle here, and that is what matters for its interpretation.
The âheraldicâ eagle was adopted and adapted from Roman and Byzantine art as much for its striking appearance as for its connotations of imperial power. But its forceful repetition in Ê¿Ämirid art indicates that it had a deeper significance than this. This is one motif where the poetry is not particularly helpful in elucidating its meaning, since the eagle is an uncommon poetic image. In contrast to the plethora of lion images in Ibn DarrÄj, the eagle occurs only once:
âDirect [the Muslim armies] against the disordered enemy, who are like eagles and falcons that have sought refuge in the inaccessible summits of the highest mountains â¦â91
On the few occasions the eagle does occur in Andalusi poetry of this time, it has a clear association with death, as for example,
âBut over his head there hovered the eagles of death,
Suffocating him with their gigantic wings â¦â92
This is also how the image is used in some verses by Ibn KhafÄja (1058â1138):
âAnd what is the soul of man if not the prey (á¹arÄ«da) over which glides the eagle of death (Ê¿uqÄb al-ḥimÄm)?â93
This poetic image might suggest a meaning for the artistic representation of the eagle which traps prey in its claws, though the implication of flight in all these verses would perhaps imply that as images they relate better to the âprofileâ type. However, there is one particular poetic context in which eagles do consistently occur â in passages describing military processions, where they adorn the banners of the Umayyad army. For example, in Ibn DarrÄjâs description of the embassy of Ibn Gómez to Cordoba c. 995 (Chapter 2),
âThe [Christians] walked in the shadows of the banners which reminded them of the days when eagles and birds of prey beset them
And they had to take care of the blazons of each victor which, at times, attacked the wind and, at others, devoured the danger,
And every eagle wishes to devour the livers of their enemies with the tip of its sharp beak
And a dangerous serpent snakes about the heads of the dead enemies to devour them
The lions roar, and the banners wave as if they were [fluttering] hearts
And the cavalry is lined up one next to the other in a formation which no-one could attack â¦â94
Likewise, on the occasion of Sancho Abarcaâs visit to Cordoba in 992, the striking images on the banners are implicated in his terror of the army and of al-Manṣūrâs mercy:
âAwe of the army frightened him so that he drew back in terror â¦
He didnât blink an eye, unless a lion should attack another out of terror of the lances,
And a snake, which the air attacked in alarm, lay in wait one black night for another snake,
And eagles of the mountains, who seemed to [Sancho] at war [with each other], continually swirled around his cadaver â¦â95
These verses play with the poetic conceit that an image seems so real that it might come alive, a sensation which must have been enhanced in real life by the movement of the banners in the wind. They conjure a picture of so many banners that they clash together, suggesting that their designs of seemingly-real animals are trying to attack each other. These verses imply, further, that the banners were clustered together according to designs (so that lions attack lions, eagles eagles etc), which could suggest that these three animals â lions, snakes, and eagles â identified particular divisions within the Andalusi army.
To confirm that these poetic passages do accurately describe the kinds of banners that the Umayyad army carried, we can refer to the textual descriptions of two similar military processions (burÅ«z) during al-Ḥakamâs reign. In the year 360/971, a major ceremony was arranged to receive the brothers JaÊ¿far and Yaḥya ibn Ê¿AlÄ« al-AndalusÄ«, two men who had previously been high members of the Fatimid administration in North Africa but who sought allegiance with the Umayyads at this time.96 Their visit to Cordoba was escorted by Ibn AbÄ« Ê¿Ämir. They
âpassed before a formation of banner-bearers, who held aloft admirable flags of extraordinary kinds and workmanship, a hundred in number, with terrible images, such as lions with their jaws open, terrifying leopards, eagles swooping on their prey and horrible dragons â¦â97
There is an almost identical passage in the description of GhÄlibâs triumphal procession in 364/975, after his defeat of Ḥasan ibn QÄnÅ«n:
âThen they passed ⦠between two ranks of men holding banners and standards of rich textiles and surprising forms, together with other flags on which were represented the figures of lions, tigers, dragons, eagles and other terrible images â¦â98
The mention of âlions with their jaws openâ and âeagles swooping on their preyâ once again evokes the decoration of the Ê¿Ämirid basins. This description also indicates that the eagles on the banners had prey, as they do on the Ê¿Ämirid objects (indeed as they are also represented in the few poetic citations mentioned above). The word translated by Emilio GarcÃa Gómez as âdragonsâ (thaÊ¿baÌn,
1.3.1 Banners
âOne of the emblems of royal authority is the display of banners and flags and the beating of drums and the blowing of trumpets and drums.â
Ibn Khaldūn100
We know very little about the banners of the Umayyad army, or indeed about banners from the early Islamic period in general. As discussed in Chapter 5, from the âreligious ceremonyâ of the knotting of the banners before the Andalusi army departed on campaign, we know the names of âthree of the most esteemed bannersâ: al-Ê¿Uqda, al-Ê¿Alam and al-Shaá¹ranj.101 The latter seems to have been the most important of the three, as it is mentioned in other processions as well: when al-Ḥakam II left MadÄ«nat al-ZahrÄʾ in 971 he was âproceeded by different classes of banners and ensigns, amongst which, for the special honour with which his lord distinguishes it, was the lofty Shaá¹ranjâ; on another occasion, GhÄlib sent a military detachment to Cordoba âin perfect formation with parade ornaments including the Shaá¹ranjâ.102 This was probably so-called because it had a design like a chess board; as David Nicolle notes, this âcheckyâ pattern is the oldest in northern European heraldry103 â could it have been influenced by this Umayyad caliphal ensign? As we have seen, other banners borne by the Andalusi army had figures, described in al-RÄzÄ«âs Annals as rÄyÄt muá¹£awwara (§203). As such the Andalusi Umayyads seem to have been unusual in employing such a range of figurative motifs, though the Fatimids used lion-shaped windsocks in their ceremonial processions, as discussed below.
As Andrew Marsham notes, banners already played an important role in ârituals of Islamic monarchyâ during the time of the Prophet Muḥammad, and there are many references to banners in the historical tradition: âPossession of a banner tied by the Prophet was a mark of authority and honour: the names of those given banners by the Prophet before raids were remembered; which banners subsequently took part in important battles were also remembered. When the Prophet delegated military command to a tribal envoy, he is often said to have âtied a banner for him over his peopleâ (Ê¿aqada lahu liwÄʾan Ê¿alÄ qawmihi) ⦠The banner was the pre-eminent symbol of a âco-liable-groupâ in assembly for war, and in battle itselfâ.104
However, the historical texts preserve very little information about what military banners actually looked like. The earliest available visual evidence, for the Islamic West or East, are the illustrations in Castilian manuscripts such as the Cantigas de Santa MarÃa or Islamic manuscripts such as the MaqÄmÄt, dating from the thirteenth century, while the earliest surviving objects that can definitely be identified as banners are Marinid, from around the middle of the fourteenth century (Figure 172).105 These examples are all epigraphic, with bold QurʾÄnic quotations or religious slogans. A rare depiction from the tenth century, on an Abbasid lustre bowl, likewise shows an epigraphic banner.106
Banner made for the Marinid Sultan AbÅ«âl-Ḥasan, 1339â40, silk with tapestry decoration in silk and gold thread; Toledo Cathedral
© Cabildo Primado , Toledo
As early as the Battle of á¹¢iffÄ«n in 37/657, Islamic tribal groupings on each side bore distinctive emblems on their military banners (Ar. rÄya, liwÄʾ, or Ê¿alam), which served to identify them as members of a kinship group, and even their status within that group: the liwÄʾ probably signified military command, while rÄyÄt were the emblems of a kinship group, or in some cases a personal emblem.107 The two sides could be distinguished from one another,108 and while these emblems were mainly non-representational â their distinguishing characteristics based rather on varying colours, patterns or religious inscriptions â others were figurative, such as the rÄya of the BanÅ« GhanÄ« and BÄhila, which featured lions.109 Furthermore, though it probably did not represent this visually, the black rÄya of the Prophet Muḥammad was known as âal-Ê¿UqÄbâ, âthe Eagleâ.110
As Hugh Kennedy describes, Islamic armies were conventionally drawn up for battle in lines; every officer (qÄʾid) should know his men and âeach man must know his position in the line (markaz) and the banners and flags (bunÅ«d, aÊ¿lam, rÄyÄt) under which he servesâ.111 Banner-holders had an important role as the banners were âa key element in maintaining cohesion and morale in the confusion of a closely fought conflictâ.112 In the civil war between the sons of HÄrÅ«n al-RashÄ«d â al-MaʾmÅ«n and al-AmÄ«n (between 811 and 819) â al-AmÄ«nâs general, Ê¿AlÄ« ibn ʿĪsa ibn Mahan, arranged his 40,000 strong army into groups of 1000, each with a banner.113 These could vary greatly in size: al-ṬabarÄ«, for example, records that the Abbasid general, al-AfshÄ«n, âused to carry twelve huge black banners ⦠and about 500 small bannersâ.114 For the Marinid period, in particular between 1250 and 1350, Amira Bennison comments that âfrustratingly, flags and standards are rarely described in any detail and we are left to ponder what, if any, the difference was between rÄyÄt, aÊ¿lÄm or bunÅ«d. In general, however, bunÅ«d and aÊ¿lÄm are used in the plural to indicate the massed banners of the army while rÄya is used for the royal standard of the sultan himself or his representativeâ.115 The Marinids used banners on the battlefield to identify the ruler and individual military tribal contingents, and to facilitate order.116
In more ceremonial contexts, âthe only distinction between the cavalcade of an official and that of the caliph was the number of flags, or the use of particular colours for the caliphâs flagâ.117 In the description of a particularly elaborate New Year procession from towards the end of the Fatimid period, the vizier â who played the same role as the ḥÄjib in al-Andalus â was distinguished by his own insignia: âhe received two standards on long lances, which were carried immediately in front of him, and in addition to these, he received ten banners (bunÅ«d), which were larger than the standards (liwÄʾ) and made of embroidered dabÄ«qÄ« linen in various coloursâ.118 Here the material is probably significant in distinguishing the vizier from the caliph, who was always surrounded by silk. At the same New Year procession, the caliph was accompanied by two âstandards of praiseâ (liwÄʾay al-ḥamd), âmade of white silk embroidered in gold [and] attached to two long lancesâ; and by 21 fine banners (rÄyÄt liá¹Äf), each carried by one of the caliphâs mounted escort, âembroidered with silk in contrasting colours and bearing the Fatimid slogan, naá¹£r min allÄh wa fatḥ qarÄ«b, âVictory from God and speedy triumphâ. They were attached to lances and each had three á¹irÄz bands. Behind these banners came about 3000 cavalryâ.119 Fatimid processional banners were thus predominantly epigraphic, bearing the dynastyâs propagandistic slogans. But there is also one interesting use of a figurative banner. Closest to the caliph and carried by two members of his elite bodyguard (á¹£ibyÄn al-khÄṣṣ) were âtwo lances with crescents of solid gold (dhahab á¹£Ämiá¹a), each with a yellow or red brocade lion ⦠The mouths of the lions were round disks, which the wind entered to puff up the figureâ.120 This description makes it clear that the lion banners in the Fatimid procession were windsocks. Could that also have been the case with the figurative banners borne by the Andalusi Umayyad army? This would have given them a more three-dimensional quality and perhaps made them move more vigorously in the wind. Unfortunately there is no indication of this in the texts.
The Fatimid context is the only other context I have found which mentions figurative banners, and even so this is restricted to the image of the lion which, in the IsmaÊ¿Ä«lÄ« context, probably symbolises Ê¿ÄlÄ«, as Fahmida Suleman has argued.121 Returning to the Andalusi context, and to the specific motif of the eagle, it is Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III who can be credited with introducing the eagle onto the banners of the Umayyad army. In 322/933â4, just a few years after proclaiming his caliphate, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn set off on campaign against Osma, preceded by a magnificent and luxurious military burÅ«z. After describing the caliphâs appearance, his mount, and the formation of troops around him, Ibn ḤayyÄn continues:
âSo as to make the display more spectacular [al-NÄá¹£ir] increased the types of military equipment used and the formidable, beautiful and important insignias of the different types of banners and standards, and on this occasion the eagle appeared among the banners, which [al-NÄá¹£ir] had invented, since no ruler before him had had it, and the people gazed at it with curiosity and delight, and it was the subject of endless conversations ⦠[Afterwards] the poets mentioned in many and excellent poems the magnificence of the parade and departure of al-NÄá¹£ir on this expedition, the majesty of his banners, the great number of his soldiers, his impressive attire and the brilliance of his entourage, and greatly praised the recent and ingenious adoption of eagles onto the banners â¦â122
As was noted above, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn created a striking visual association between himself and the lion. It seems he did something similar with its counterpart, âthe lion of the airâ,123 introducing it onto military banners in this highly conspicuous manner. The eagleâs poetic association with death would make it an appropriate image for a banner carried into battle (signifying the imminence of the enemyâs death). However, it is also probable that Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn intended to draw a visual parallel between himself and the Byzantine Emperors who used this image, especially if the representation of the eagles on the banners was based on Imperial silks that the caliph had received through diplomatic exchanges. It therefore became a striking emblem of power, inextricably associated in the minds of the Andalusi poets and people with Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn. Was he also making a link to his ancestor, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn I, who had been known as the âfalcon of the Qurayshâ (á¹£aqr quraysh)? Was Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III laying claim to be the âeagle of the Qurayshâ, as well as the âlion of the caliphateâ? He may also have perceived a connection between his adoption of the eagle onto his banners, and the fact that the Prophet Muḥammadâs rÄya was named âthe Eagleâ (al-Ê¿UqÄb). As mentioned, this rÄya was probably aniconic, however the tradition of its name must have been well-known to Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn as an Islamic ruler and warrior who claimed descent from the BanÅ« Quraysh, and who claimed to be the Prophetâs legitimate successor (khalÄ«fa).
While the adoption of the eagle banners was still brand new, later the same year Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn included other banners with figurative designs, including an eagle, in his extensive diplomatic gift to MÅ«sÄ ibn AbÄ« al-Ê¿Äfiyya:
âThis gift had, among the curiosities of weapons, four banners (bunÅ«d). The first banner had the image of a varicoloured eagle. It had a silver head, with gilded inscriptions; two red eyes; and in the middle of its forehead, a green stone. A second banner had the image of a lion that was also decorated. It had a silver head and sky-blue eyes. A third banner was of a large white horse sewn in gold with writing covering a wide area on its three sides. A fourth banner was red. Sewn in silver on its three sides was writing covering a wide area.â124
Thus, by 934, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs banners already included other figurative emblems in addition to the eagle. Since the eagle is the only one highlighted in Ibn ḤayyÄnâs description of the burÅ«z before the campaign against Osma, it is likely that the other motifs â the lion and the white horse â were already in use. Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn clearly also made use of epigraphic banners, and the text indicates that these inscriptions were âwrittenâ (maktÅ«b) in contrasting colours â silver on a red ground in the last case. These inscriptions âcover[ed] a wide area on its three sidesâ: as such it calls to mind the way the inscription is organised around three sides of the back of al-Manṣūrâs marble basin. Finally, the colour combinations of each banner are carefully noted â as mentioned above, the use of different colours might distinguish different individuals within a procession or on the battlefield, so their colourways are significant.
The intention of including these banners in MÅ«sÄâs gift was obviously that he should display them and thereby display his allegiance to the Umayyads. It is clear from other passages in the Muqtabis that Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs Berber allies publicised their Umayyad allegiance through the hoisting of banners, and their rejection of the Fatimids by refusing to hoist theirs: for example, IdrÄ«s al-ḤasanÄ«, lord of the RashgÅ«n, sent Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn two letters in consecutive years, in both of which he pleaded, âI swear by my relationship with the Prophet that I never accepted the [Fatimidsâ] pretensions, nor did I raise their bannerâ.125 Similarly, after the victory over the Ḥafṣūnids and the conquest of Bobastro, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs appointed representatives entered the city, âtaking possession of it for the sulá¹Än and hoisting his banners on the wallsâ.126 These passages and others indicate that the raising of banners represented an important display of Umayyad allegiance; it follows that these banners must somehow have been recognisably Umayyad, and recognisably not Fatimid.
Michael Brett has recently described the insignia that accompanied the sijillÄt (diplomatic correspondence) sent by the Fatimids to the ZÄ«rids in IfrÄ«qiya in the 1020s, in the context of waning allegiance on the part of the latter. Brett notes that âsuch insignia ⦠undoubtedly served as the outward signs of ⦠conferment, and in that capacity were ⦠indispensable to the public display which may have been the essential proof of the transaction. Presumably for that reason the insignia described in the sources were most conspicuously flagsâ.127 Two flags sent in 414/1023â4 were called manjÅ«q, âevidently sumptuous banners of gold and silver brocade, in addition to the more numerous bunÅ«d or alwiya that came with every delegation, some fifteen or twenty at a time, embroidered with gold. All were immediately displayed to the populace in spectacular cavalcadesâ.128 Interestingly, in 411/1020, the ZÄ«rid ruler al-MuÊ¿izz sent a letter to the Fatimid al-HÄkim (r. 996â1021), âreporting the demise of the rival Umayyad caliphate at Cordobaâ; in response, the âmessage from Cairo [was] one of congratulation, accompanied by the presentation ⦠of fifteen gold-embroidered flags, whose arrival was the occasion for a celebratory paradeâ.129 Since the texts give no indication of figurative designs, it seems likely that the many gold-embroidered banners sent to the ZÄ«rids were epigraphic, probably displaying the Fatimid slogan (naá¹£r min allÄh wa fatḥ qarÄ«b) or other IsmaÊ¿Ä«lÄ« religious formulae.
Might this fundamental consideration have been another concern behind Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs introduction of the eagle onto his banners since, unlike the lion, it was not an image the Fatimids used? When Ibn ḤayyÄn says that âno ruler before [al-NÄá¹£ir] had had [the eagle]â as a symbol, he obviously means âno Muslim rulerâ. The evidence we have for the Fatimid use of such emblems all post-dates this period: the earliest examples of the Fatimid depiction of an âimperialâ eagle are the lustre bowls signed by Muslim (Figure 119), which date from the late tenth century at the very earliest, and probably the early eleventh.130 Do these Fatimid eagles reference Andalusi models? The lion-shaped windsocks mentioned above date from the second half of the twelfth century.
Adopting the eagle into his military art, where it probably joined a menagerie of other fierce animals â a menagerie which seems only to have expanded during al-Ḥakamâs reign, judging by the descriptions in al-RÄzÄ«âs Annals â was a significant move in terms of the articulation and legitimation of Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs caliphate. The eagle seems to have become a recognisably Umayyad emblem â the fact that it was singled out by Ibn ḤayyÄn in discussing its adoption onto the banners would indicate that. Its appearance inside several of the medallions on the Oña silk (Figure 137C) may be a good reason for associating that embroidery with a caliphal production under Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III, as Casamar and Zozaya did.131 This might invite the consideration that other motifs contained within the medallions of that embroidery were also used on the banners â for example, the enigmatic motif of the bird riding on the back of a horse: as we saw above, one of the banners sent to MÅ«sÄ was adorned with a âlarge white horseâ. If, as suggested in Chapter 7, textiles such as the Oña embroidery served as hangings in campaign tents, or even within palace halls, the encapsulation of motifs from the military banners would surround Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn and his courtiers with an iconography of war.
Before the Ê¿Ämirid period, the heraldic eagle appears very infrequently in Andalusi art and, apart from this embroidery, the only other extant object to employ it is the small ivory pyxis made for al-Ḥakam (Figure 86): the sole decoration of this openwork container, apart from minimal vegetal motifs and its inscription in simple Kufic, are the four heraldic eagles on the lid, enclosed within four-lobed medallions. Significantly, this pyxis may have been commissioned for al-Ḥakam to celebrate the birth of his son, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn â the identical phrasing of its inscription to that made for his consort á¹¢ubḥ in 964, and the fact that they both appear to preserve their original mounts, made in an identical style and technique, indicates that they were made as a pair.132 Al-Ḥakam was around 50 years old by that date, and one of the main concerns of the period had been the need for an heir to continue the Umayyad caliphate into the next generation. The eagles on his pyxis might triumphalise the fact that this longed-for Umayyad heir had finally arrived.
It seems highly probable, then, that by the time al-Manṣūr ordered four heraldic eagles to be carved on to the short ends of his marble basin (Figure 116), the âfrontalâ type had become a recognisable emblem of the Umayyad caliphate in al-Andalus. The Ê¿Ämiridsâ highly visible employment of this emblem in their artistic vocabulary may thus have been intended to display their own allegiance to the Umayyads â just as the caliphateâs Berber clients did by publicly displaying the banners which bore this image. This implies that the âpetrificationâ on the basins of the banners which the Umayyad troops, led by their Ê¿Ämirid generals, carried into battle, was intended to underline the Ê¿Ämiridsâ control of the army and their role as mujÄhidÅ«n. But the motif on the basins has a twist. The eagles on both the Oña silk and al-Ḥakamâs pyxis are depicted in very similar fashion to the Byzantine imperial textiles, in that they do not have pointed ears nor clutch prey in their talons. This might be a symptom of the relatively recent introduction of the motif, implying that artisans were still looking to the original model of Byzantine silks and had not yet ânaturalisedâ this image. On the other hand, these elements, which are so consistently used on the Ê¿Ämirid objects, could have been a deliberate Ê¿Ämirid innovation: indeed, was this the way the emblem appeared on the Ê¿Ämiridsâ own military banners?
In al-Manṣūrâs and Ê¿Abd al-Malikâs basins, the eagles grip gazelles in their talons, and support small lions on their âshouldersâ; small griffins are under the eaglesâ feet. If the griffin motif stands for the office of the ḥÄjib, as Montejo has suggested (Chapter 6), this placement and relative scale is significant. The large bold eagle, which stands for the Umayyad army and by extension the caliphate, is supported by small griffins, representing the Ê¿Ämirid ḥujjÄb, who support the caliph by standing in for him in battle, since HishÄm was not capable of leading the Umayyad armies into the field himself; the griffins are also under the feet of the Umayyad emblem, showing the Ê¿Ämiridsâ subservience to the caliphate. The prey â gazelles â grasped in the eagleâs talons represent the enemies of the Umayyad state and the fate that will befall them in battle, while the small lions also stand for the Ê¿Ämirids, an association underlined by its metaphorical repetition in panegyric poetry. Perhaps the pointed ears were adopted to make the eagles look even more fierce. This then becomes a new emblem. Its use on the basins, disposed so insistently as symmetrical pairs at each short end, thus âpetrifiesâ the designs of the banners which the Ê¿Ämirids themselves carried into battle; it speaks to the way in which they identified themselves through their role as leaders of the Andalusi armies, whose victories enhanced the power and prestige of the Umayyad state, but also as servants and supporters of the caliph, and actors in his name.
Given the numbers of campaigns in which al-Manṣūr engaged throughout his ḥijÄba, military banners and their devices likely played an important role in Ê¿Ämirid visual identity. As discussed in Chapter 4, al-MadÄ«nat al-ZÄhira was located next to a military camp, whose forces could be called on to defend the city at any time; it may also have been sited in geographical proximity to the Faḥṣ al-SurÄdiq, the armyâs mustering ground (Figure 17). The vista which al-ZÄhira presented may thus have been one in which the banners of the different regiments were constantly fluttering. Both Ibn Ê¿IdhÄrÄ«âs statement, that âfrom [al-ZÄhira] the standards marched direct to certain victoryâ, and the metaphor of flowers evoking âvictorious banners trembling on the day of combatâ, in al-JazÄ«rÄ«âs description of the Ê¿Ämirid palace in the poem quoted at the start of this chapter, seem to contain a memory of this visual association between banners and the palace-city.133 Furthermore, the ceremony of knotting the banners was a key moment in the ritual of preparing for campaign, and under the Ê¿Ämirids this may have taken place in the new tribune constructed within the Cordoba Mosque by al-Manṣūr (Chapter 5). Not only would these banners have been carried in their hundreds by the Umayyad troops when marching in procession or onto the battlefield, but al-Manṣūr himself â âat their centre in the most protected positionâ134 â would surely be visibly identified by banners of particular designs, colours and quantities, in a similar way to the use of banners by the Abbasids, Fatimids and Marinids, as outlined above. Was the motif of the eagle with its prey supported by griffins the particular emblem that surrounded al-Manṣūr when he rode with his troops?
The descriptions cited above of the banners displayed at al-Ḥakamâs burÅ«z mention not just eagles but also lions with their jaws open, terrifying leopards, tigers (which might be the same as the leopards), horrible dragons (probably griffins), and âother terrible imagesâ; this suggests at least four motifs of animals who instill terror in their prey (lions, leopards, griffins, eagles). Ibn DarrÄjâs poems repeatedly mention three: lions, eagles and birds of prey, and snakes (âdangerous serpentsâ). These might be the three motifs most closely associated with al-Manṣūr, displayed in terrifying force on the occasion of the two Christian rulersâ visits to Cordoba. This might imply, further, that the particular way in which the lion-gazelle motif is depicted in Ê¿Ämirid art âpetrifiesâ another of the emblems with which al-Manṣūr was visibly associated in his role as general of the Umayyad armies. All the poetic connotations of that image, discussed above, would still be in play, rendering this motif a particularly aggressive statement of the fate of the Umayyadsâ enemies. From the surviving evidence, the snake does not become a common motif in Ê¿Ämirid art â perhaps, outside of the material context of the banner, which is itself fearsome, it is difficult to render this successfully as a fierce creature, though there does seem to be a suggestion of a snakeâs body on the basin fragments in Granada (Figure 134 L&M). The recurrence of the worm or watersnake in the border motifs of the large Ê¿Ämirid basins and on many of the small basins does not perhaps relate to the banners, but possibly to a different context entirely, as we will discuss next.
1.4 The Tale of the Tortoise and Two Ducks
The motif that inhabits the borders of the large basin group and comprises the main decoration on the small basins shows ducks pecking variously at worms, fishes, and turtles (Figures 117A, 157). As we have seen, these rather unusual motifs relate to the water which the basins contained, to the ânaturalâ setting of the Ê¿Ämirid palace gardens in which the basins were located, possibly even to the live ducks, fishes and turtles that swam inside the basins, as al-JazÄ«rÄ«âs poem indicates. On the small basins in Seville and Granada (Chapter 7: 4.2.3.2 and 3, Figures 164â168) the turtle is singled out for a particularly prominent role: on the Granada basin, it occupies two of the chamfered corners of the basin (alternating with paired fishes on the other corners); while on the Seville basin, it forms the central focus of a scene that is repeated on all three of its decorated sides, in which ducks appear to bear down on a tortoise whose legs are splayed as if swimming (or flying?). It seems to be framed by a circular device that suggests a lily-pad or perhaps a pond, and two fishes underneath enhance the association with water. The motif as depicted on the Seville basin bears a striking resemblance to the way in which the âtale of the tortoise and two ducksâ is represented in illustrated versions of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna (Figure 173).135 Is this pure coincidence?
KalÄ«la wa Dimna, illustration of the story of the ducks and turtle: Paris, Bib. Nat., MS Arabe 3465, fol. 67r; Syria, about 1200â1220
© Bibliothèque Nationale de France
The KalÄ«la wa Dimna was a âmirror for princesâ, told through animal fables, in which the eponymous characters are two jackals at the court of the lion. Dimna aspires to a higher rank at court, and helps the lion to overcome his fear of the ox, who eventually becomes the lionâs boon companion; Dimna is jealous of this friendship, finding his influence with the lion replaced by that of the ox, and resorts to treachery, telling each that the other is about to kill him. Through parables and tales within tales, the different characters teach lessons in morality and wise conduct.136 The original fable was written in ancient India and translated into Pahlavi for the Sasanian court in the sixth century, then into Arabic by Ibn al-MuqaffaÊ¿ around 750 â though this simple summary belies the multiple origins of many of the fables, including the Panchatantra and the Mahabharata.137 The earliest surviving illustrated manuscripts in Arabic do not date from before the early thirteenth century, so there is no direct evidence that earlier versions were illustrated, though Ibn al-MuqaffaÊ¿ himself refers to illustration in his own introduction to the book: âthe depiction of animal images in a variety of colours and pigments, so that they delight the hearts of kings; and their enjoyment is increased by the pleasure to be had from these illustrations (á¹£uwar)â.138 ṬabarÄ«âs history refers to an illustrated copy of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna in Samarra in 841, while in his introduction to the Shahnama, Firdausi mentions that the Samanid sultan Naá¹£r II ibn Aḥmad (r. 913â42) commissioned a translation into Persian from the poet Rudagi (d. 916), when âmany paintings were added to illustrate the textâ.139 Raby âsafely concludesâ that there was a continuing tradition of illustrated KalÄ«la wa Dimna manuscripts between its creation in the eighth century, and the first surviving examples of the thirteenth.140
The consistent way in which certain episodes are illustrated across time has convinced scholars that these âcore-imagesâ were âhardly ever alteredâ.141 Ernst Grube pinpoints the tale of the tortoise and two ducks as one of the most memorable: âNobody who has ever seriously looked at an illustrated copy of the tales known as KalÄ«la wa Dimna ⦠will have missed â and once seen, forgotten â the extraordinary image of the âflying tortoiseâ ⦠It is an image that was clearly devised for a particular effect: leading him who peruses the manuscript directly into the textâ.142 This story appears in nearly all the early surviving manuscripts of KalÄ«la wa Dimna, and Grube comments that âit is very likely that this image, and others like it, had been consciously created at the time these stories were first formulated, for they appear in renderings that predate the surviving manuscript illustrations of the KalÄ«la wa Dimnaâ.143 He shows two examples of Indian stone sculpture, of which one â a relief of two men killing the tortoise, made in Mathura in the third century â shows the tortoise rendered in a remarkably similar way to the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins.144
The tale tells of a tortoise, who lived in a pond with two ducks, âjoined by the strong ties of friendshipâ.145 There came a time when the water in the pond was greatly reduced, and the ducks decided that they had to leave and travel to other places. The tortoise begged them to take her with them, saying âonly people like me suffer when the water runs out, because I cannot live if I am not near itâ. The ducks offer to carry the tortoise by each grabbing one end of a stick in their beaks, onto which she can fasten herself by firmly biting it. But, they advise, she must under no circumstances respond to any of the people who will see them along the way. The tortoise agrees, and the ducks take off; the astonished people below, seeing such a spectacle, exclaim to each other, âLook! How extraordinary! Two ducks carrying a tortoise through the air!â The tortoise, forgetting the ducksâ advice and âbelieving herself strongâ, opens her mouth to respond; she thus loses her grip on the stick and falls to her death. As Esin Atıl puts it, the âtortoise did not profit from wise counselâ.146
The depiction of the tortoise and ducks on the Seville basin lacks an essential element of the story, that is, the stick which the tortoise bites on in order to fly. This suggests that the scenes on the basin are not intended as a direct representation of this tale, but may still evoke it â even if the primary message was the natural aesthetic of the Ê¿Ämirid palace garden, the way in which these motifs were represented may still have been informed by an illustrated version of this tale from the KalÄ«la wa Dimna. Could this have been another literary work available at the Umayyad court, providing an iconographical source for the depiction of certain artistic images? As Francisco Prado-Vilar has argued, the existence of an illustrated copy of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna in al-Andalus at this time is highly likely. This book âstood out as one of the most renowned best-sellersâ,147 while Atıl calls it âthe most popularly copied and translated book in Islamic literatureâ.148 Given what we know of al-Ḥakamâs obsessive acquisitiveness, it is extremely likely that he could have done what he could to obtain a copy for his library. We may recall that he âsent 10,000 dinars of pure gold to buy the KitÄb al-AghÄnÄ« from AbÅ«âl-Faraj al-Iá¹£fahÄnÄ«, who sent him a copy ⦠even before it saw the light in his native Iraqâ.149 Perhaps other wealthy men of the Cordoban court also had copies of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna in their private libraries. As Jonathan Bloom says, these tales were âunusually popular in the Middle Agesâ.150 Translations into medieval Hebrew and Latin are known, and a fragment of an illustrated Greek version, copied on parchment, has been attributed to southern Italy between 980 and 1050.151 Its illustrations bear similarities to those in the later Arabic and Persian manuscripts, which has prompted scholars to suggest that all the extant illustrated versions descend from a common but lost Arabic manuscript dating as early as the tenth century â could this hypothetical illustrated copy of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna have come from al-Andalus?
Prado-Vilar argues that KalÄ«la wa Dimna was a major source for the Andalusi âmirror for princesâ, al-Ê¿Iqd al-farÄ«d, compiled by Ibn Ê¿Abd RabbihÄ« during the caliphate of Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III; indeed, that al-Ê¿Iqd was âlikely one of the resources used for the instruction of the caliphâs sons, namely the future al-Ḥakam II and al-MughÄ«raâ.152 He argues that these sources translated into the distinctive and enigmatic iconography of the ivory pyxis made for al-MughÄ«ra in 968 (Figures 3, 171). He has called attention to the resemblances between certain images on the pyxis and illustrations of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna, as if âthe images on the pyxis serve as visual tokens to recall specific episodesâ.153 Familiar with the illustrations of KalÄ«la wa Dimna as al-MughÄ«ra could thus have been, the motifs of lion-bull combat, affronted goats, parrots and falconer, which we see on the ivory, would have called to mind the relevant episodes from the text. Further, in proposing that Ibn AbÄ« Ê¿Ämir was the âcreative force behind the al-MughÄ«ra pyxisâ, Prado-Vilar argues that he himself would have known the illustrations of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna, being âprofoundly learned, interested in poetry ⦠and intimately acquainted with the literary productions of the Eastâ.154 Leaving aside the question of whether or not Ibn AbÄ« Ê¿Ämir conceived the decorative programme of the al-MughÄ«ra pyxis, it seems plausible that, if illustrated versions of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna were circulating in al-Andalus in the late tenth century, al-Manṣūr and his boon companions from the state elite would have been familiar with the stories, as well as the ways in which they were visualised.
Could the ducks and tortoises on the Ê¿Ämirid basins be referencing such visualisations of the âtale of the tortoise and two ducksâ? As Grube notes, âThese animal fables used images to communicate clearly and instantly âpoliticalâ or âdidacticâ points. If one knows the text or the story, one instantly recognises a pictorial interpretation of a given story, the image becoming a symbol rather than being a mere illustrationâ.155 Beyond the witty allusion to the natural environment in which the basins and their viewers sat, this visual reference could have been recognised, admired and appreciated for the way in which it conjured a literary image, perhaps at the same time providing a starting place for further poetic inspiration and improvisation. While pondering this scene with which his basins were adorned, al-Manṣūr would call to mind the story of the tortoise who came to a bad end because she did not understand or respect the rules of good and intelligent conduct. Surrounded by the boon companions who supported and advised him, he would be constantly reminded of the importance of remembering wise counsel.
In sum, the iconography of the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins, which was carried over into other objects made for the Ê¿Ämirids, encapsulated their role as mujÄhidÅ«n for the Umayyad state. This was the fundamental tool by which their role as ḥujjÄb was legitimised, since the caliph was not able to lead the armies himself. The lion-gazelle motif emblematised the Ê¿Ämiridsâ physical courage, which they used for the defence of Islam in their always-victorious military encounters. The incorporation of the eagle emblem from the Andalusi military banners also made an explicit statement of allegiance to the Umayyads, in whose name they always acted, and without whom they would not be in office. Both images acted as âemblemsâ in that they may âpetrifyâ the devices used on the Ê¿Ämiridsâ personal banners. The other scenes on the basins allude to their cultural patronage â their love of architecture, poetry on the themes of flowers and nature, literary genres such as the moralising fables of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna. As such, the decoration of the basins evoked the full gamut of princely virtues. These messages were underlined by the inscriptions on these objects â their employment of particular epigraphic formulae, and the deliberate relationships between text and image.
2 Text and Image in Ê¿Ämirid Art
Under the Ê¿Ämirids we see a number of interesting changes in the standard formulae of blessings used in the inscriptions on objects. Art historians usually search for an objectâs messages in its iconography, since it is reasonably assumed that a patronâs choice of certain scenes on an object reflects the ways in which he wished to represent himself. However, where an inscription is an integral part of the decorative programme â as it is on the objects we are studying here â this text is no less the result of deliberate choices on the part of the patron, and thus the messages it might contain should not be ignored.
In the objects manufactured in al-Andalus at this period, the inscription was fundamental. The epigraphic space was integral to the overall conception, since the inscription was carefully designed to fit the available space, and care was taken over its decorative appearance: seen, for example, in the floriated terminations of many letters, or the floral space-fillers and beaded decoration of the letters themselves on the Pamplona casket (Figure 120). The inscription was also integral to the decoration in that it directed the order in which the scenes should be read â not just from right to left, but also where the iconography begins. Moreover, the placement of key words in direct relation to the iconography was a carefully considered feature of certain inscriptions: for example, the organisation of the decoration at the front of Sanchueloâs pyxis lid (Figures 140) concentrates the gaze on the patronâs name.156 This was noted in Chapter 7 as an innovative characteristic of the âlanguageâ of Ê¿Ämirid art, and an attention to the relationship between inscription and iconography can be seen in other objects too.
As with architectural inscriptions, it is usually the historical information provided â the names of patrons, dates and occasionally places of manufacture â that is the most considered feature. But this is not the sum of what these inscriptions tell us. While the âhistoricalâ formulae remain more or less constant, varying only in the substitution of differing names and dates, the words and phrases of blessing (adÊ¿iya, sing. duÊ¿Äʾ) vary from object to object. As with the QurʾÄnic inscriptions studied in Chapter 5, the particular adÊ¿iya employed have been an unjustly neglected element of these objectsâ inscriptions, and they repay a more detailed analysis.
It should be emphasised that these adÊ¿iya are drawn from a standard repertoire that is not unique to al-Andalus. In this respect, the blessings used in inscriptions can be seen as the equivalent of the stock repertoire of images that form the âprincely cycleâ. Nevertheless, in both cases, a patronâs choice of a particular text or image to adorn his commission has implications for the interpretation of that objectâs meaning, and for the message the patron wished to project about himself. In the case of the Ê¿Ämirid objects, the relationship between poetic text and image certainly aids the understanding of their meaning, as we have explored above. But what do their inscriptions tell us?
A survey of published inscriptions on the extant luxury objects and architectonic elements produced in al-Andalus between 318/929â30 and 441/1049â50 indicates that four phases are discernible in the phraseology of adÊ¿iya, which broadly coincide with the reigns of the first two caliphs, the Ê¿Ämirid ḥujjÄb, and the BanÅ« DhÅ«âl-NÅ«n in Taifa-period Toledo. I will not discuss the first or last of these phases. From the surviving evidence, the use of adÊ¿iya in al-Andalus seems to have been standardised under the patronage of al-Ḥakam, and the full range of blessings begins in al-Andalus circa 966. There is some degree of experimentation with the words used: for example, the adjective tÄmma (âcompleteâ, âperfectâ, used with âbarakaâ), is used for only two years,157 and salÄma, rafÊ¿a and karÄma all occur once only.158 The blessings which become most frequent are surÅ«r (âjoy, happiness, pleasureâ), Ê¿izz (âstrength, might, honourâ), Ê¿Äfiya (âhealth, well-being, vigourâ), niÊ¿ma (âblessing, grace, favourâ) and yumn (âgood fortune, prosperityâ). The most significant aspect of the adÊ¿iya used in the pre-Ê¿Ämirid phase is that they are all simple wishes for health, happiness and well-being, which can be considered appropriate for luxury objects made to be given as gifts.
This characteristic changes under the Ê¿Ämirids. In general there is a high degree of continuity from the previous phases (in the use of âroyalâ phrases such as aá¹Äla allÄh baqÄʾa-hu, âMay Allah prolong his life!â, and fa-tamma bi-Ê¿awn allÄh, âcompleted with the help of Allahâ); there is more experimentation (dawÄm, âperpetuityâ, for example, occurs once only, on the HishÄm á¹irÄz, see Figure 9, though in the previous phase dÄʾim was frequently used as an adjective), and also some interesting revivals from Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs phase (such as aÊ¿azza-hu allÄh, âMay Allah esteem himâ or âmake him mightyâ). However, the defining characteristic of the Ê¿Ämirid phase is the introduction of new formulae, which have significant implications for the interpretation of the objects on which they occur. These new formulae reflect the Ê¿Ämiridsâ military role as defenders of the faith and the state: this is most blatant on Ê¿Abd al-Malikâs marble basin (Appendix 4.13), which describes him as sayf al-dawla nÄá¹£ir al-dÄ«n wa qÄmiÊ¿ al-mushrikÄ«n (âSword of the State, Defender of the Faith and Tamer of Polytheistsâ), and the Pamplona casket (Appendix 4.11), which wishes him the âfulfilment of hopes through good (or pious) worksâ (bulÅ«ghu amali fÄ« á¹£Äliḥi Ê¿amalin â which could refer to his continued campaigns against the Christians). This also seems to be the sense of a new Ê¿Ämirid formula, waffaqa-hu(m) allÄh, âMay Allah bring him (them) complete successâ.159 Another phrase used by the Ê¿Ämirids is ayyada-hu allÄh, âMay Allah strengthen himâ, which revives a formula experimented with briefly by Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn.160 This phrase and the related noun taʾyÄ«d, âsupport, endorsementâ, now become standard Ê¿Ämirid formulae; significantly, taʾyÄ«d is invariably paired with naá¹£r, âvictoryâ, which also becomes standard under the Ê¿Ämirids. Both taʾyÄ«d and naá¹£r had each occurred once only under the caliphs, and in both cases in military contexts,161 which indicates that jihad was implicit in the sense of both words. Of course, since the 960s, the Fatimids had employed the word naá¹£r in their dynastic slogan â naá¹£r min allÄh wa fatḥ qarÄ«b, âVictory from God and speedy triumphâ â which was explicitly related to jihad.162 As observed in the discussion of the naming of al-MadÄ«nat al-ZÄhiraâs main gate, at the end of Chapter 4, the deliberate use of semantics by al-Manṣūr may have had a Fatimid influence. Thus, in contrast to the gentle tone of the phrases employed in the previous (caliphal) phases, which wished the ruler a long life or general well-being, the new Ê¿Ämirid formulae adopted a martial tone, reflecting the trends in poetry and in artistic iconography that we observed above.
It is perhaps significant that naá¹£r and taʾyÄ«d had first seen use under the first two Umayyad caliphs. But given the consistency with which they are paired on Ê¿Ämirid objects, there is more to the choice of these words than a deliberate association with the caliphs or the reflection of an increasingly militaristic state. This pairing now becomes a standard epigraphic formula: in chronological order of the objectsâ creation, the phrase naá¹£r wa taʾyÄ«d occurs on al-Manṣūrâs basin (987, Appendix 4.7); then on Sanchueloâs pyxis lid (999, Appendix 4.10), which also features ayyada-hu allÄh after the patronâs name, giving extra emphasis to the new formula; then on Ê¿Abd al-Malikâs basin (1004â7, Appendix 4.13). The formula does not feature on the Pamplona casket but in general that inscription features non-standard phrases which also convey martial messages (Appendix 4.11).
It is no accident that taʾyÄ«d and ayyada-hu share a root with the laqab taken by HishÄm II, âal-Muʾayyad bi-llÄhâ, âHe who is supported/endorsed by Allahâ. It is a significantly weaker title than those of his father (al-Mustaná¹£ir, âhe who is made victorious by Allahâ) and grandfather (al-NÄá¹£ir li-DÄ«n AllÄh, âchampion for the religion of Allahâ), both deriving from the root n-á¹£-r. The phrase ayyada-hu allÄh may have been revived precisely because of its semantic association with the new caliph. However, it becomes even less of a coincidence when we consider that âal-Manṣūrâ, âhe who is (made) victorious [understood: by AllÄh]â, also derives from the root n-á¹£-r. The consistent pairing of the two words naá¹£r wa taʾyÄ«d in the Ê¿Ämirid inscriptions is not just an anodyne request for favour from God; instead, it encodes the throne-names of both the caliph and his ḥÄjib. The ordering of the words may also be significant â âal-Manṣūrâ always comes first â and since the phrase follows immediately from baraka min allÄh, the implication is that it is also from Allah that naá¹£r and taʾyÄ«d derive. This construction thereby proclaims that both men drew their power from God, and thus seems to have been a subtle yet intentional legitimising device on the part of the Ê¿Ämirid patrons.
This encoded epigraphic pairing of Umayyad and Ê¿Ämirid mirrors the visual pairing seen in the iconography of the marble basins, in particular in the eagle emblems that may have adorned the Ê¿Ämiridsâ banners. It is clear that through this combination of epigraphy and iconography, the Ê¿Ämirid patrons aimed to convey a message about the nature of their power, and from where it derived. In this regard it is probably significant that the inscriptions on most of the Ê¿Ämirid objects (al-Manṣūrâs basin, the Pamplona casket, the Braga pyxis, Ê¿Abd al-Malikâs basin) state that âthis is what [the Ê¿Ämirid patron] ordered to be made for himselfâ, mimma amara bi-Ê¿amalihi (Appendix 4.7, 11, 12, 13). (The Sanchuelo pyxis merely lists the blessings for (li-) the young vizier, possibly implying that someone else â his father? â commissioned the object for him: Appendix 4.10.) From what we have discussed of the DÄr al-á¹¢inÄÊ¿a under the Ê¿Ämirids, it is clear that they could direct the creation of these works, as well as the invention of a new set of visual motifs and invocation formulae. Moreover, when we examine the placement of these key words in relation to the images beneath, the messages conveyed in the inscriptions can shed light on the meaning of the objectsâ visual programme.
As we have noted, in Islamic art, an objectâs inscription and its decoration cannot be considered separately, since the order in which the decoration should be read naturally follows the direction of the inscription. The owner of one of the ivory pyxides â which are small and light enough to be handled and whose circular shape invites them to be turned in the hand â could cast his or her eye with ease between the messages of both inscription and iconography. Likewise, the fact that the Ê¿Ämirid basins are decorated on all four sides implies that they were located in a setting where the viewer could walk around them to read their messages. The visual images presented there were likely to be familiar to the viewer from poetry or other contexts, and he may immediately have recognised their individual meanings. Nevertheless we should not neglect the importance of the inscriptions in conveying to that viewer an overall message which the decorative motifs illustrated.
It has been observed (Chapter 7) that a characteristic of Ê¿Ämirid art was a carefully-disposed relationship between text and image, which is most obvious in the great care that was taken over the placement of â even emphasis on â the patronâs name. Sanchueloâs name on his pyxis lid is highlighted by the disposition of the decoration immediately above it (3.1), and a similar âsignpostingâ device is used on both the front and back of the Pamplona casket (2.1, Figure 124), where paired medallions on both sides of the lid contain horsemen who direct our gaze down to the decoration on the box below; the device is especially reminiscent of Sanchueloâs pyxis lid at the front of the casket, where the spear plunging into the animalâs body points towards the lockplate and by extension the text and image below it. The wishes for ghibá¹a wa surÅ«r (âprosperity and happinessâ) in that part of the inscription fit appropriately with the peaceful scene of a garden majlis below it. This signposting can also be noted on the Doha box, though there we do not have a named patron (4.1.1).
It is therefore clear that the Ê¿Ämirids thought carefully about the messages they wished to convey in their art, and about the way in which those messages should be conveyed. The new formulae which the Ê¿Ämirids introduced to the standard blessings and phrases of invocation on objects carried a martial message that reflects their self-identity as mujÄhidÅ«n, in contrast to the gentle wishes of long life and well-being employed under al-Ḥakamâs patronage. Though the inscriptions on neither al-Manṣūrâs nor al-Muáºaffarâs basins survive in their entirety, it is clear from both that they began on the long sides decorated with the lion-gazelle motif (Figures 115, 129). On both objects, then, this motif was what the viewer was intended to consider first. Significantly, on both objects, it is also on this side that the phrase naá¹£r wa taʾyÄ«d occurs, thus the concept of âvictory and supportâ â coming, it must be remembered, from Allah â is linked to the visual image of lions attacking gazelles. On al-Muáºaffarâs basin, the inscription continues with the phrase sayf al-dawla nÄá¹£ir al-dÄ«n wa qÄmiÊ¿ al-mushrikÄ«n, and would have had an unmistakable relation to the combat scenes below. This relationship of text and image indicates definitively that, rather than having an astronomical or erotic connotation, the lion-gazelle combat scenes visualised the victories of the Ê¿Ämirid mujÄhidÅ«n over their foes (mushrikÅ«n), be they Christians or heretics (Masarris or Fatimids).
Furthermore, these inscriptions inextricably linked this visualisation of military victory to the name of the objectâs patron, since they continued with the construction liâl-ḥÄjib â or liâl-wazÄ«r in the case of Sanchueloâs pyxis lid â followed by his full name including titles. On both basins, the name starts at the end of the side with the lion-gazelle motif and continues round the corner, onto the first short side with eagles: this unites the two images, as well as establishing a clear visual association between the heraldic eagle symbol and the Ê¿Ämiridsâ dynastic name (ibn abÄ« Ê¿Ämir) (Figure 117B&C). The martial associations of this image, which may âpetrifyâ the Ê¿Ämiridsâ personal military emblems, imply that the eagles on al-Manṣūrâs basin symbolised those victories celebrated by and encapsulated in his laqab, inscribed on this side of the basin. Similarly, on the Pamplona casket, the phrase waffaqa-hu allÄh, âmay Allah bring him successâ, finishes at the exact centre of the inscription on the back of the casket (Figure 122): its placement immediately above the medallion containing a man (undoubtedly al-Muáºaffar) fighting two lions suggests that the âscenes of warâ that comprise the decoration of this side of the casket were intended to visualise the victories which the ḥÄjib was manifestly achieving, and would continue to achieve, as a result of Allah granting him success (tawfÄ«q), victory (naá¹£r) and support (taʾyÄ«d).
2.1 Visualising the Ideal Ruler
This careful placement of the inscriptions to encapsulate and in places elucidate an objectâs iconography indicates that the Ê¿Ämirids sought to convey particular messages in their art; furthermore, that they esteemed the luxury arts as vehicles of self-expression, and had a particular audience in mind â their nudamÄʾ, with whom they relaxed in private and who consisted of powerful members of the Cordoban elite, whose support and advice legitimised the Ê¿Ämirid ḥijÄba. The Ê¿Ämirid patrons filled their objects with images that were highly symbolic of their status as quasi-caliphs, and which in combination made a strong statement that the Ê¿Ämirids were fulfilling the virtues of the ideal ruler.
Fortunately, we possess some contemporary testimony regarding what the Ê¿Ämirids considered these virtues to be: it was observed above that the poem which al-Manṣūr composed about himself presented lions and architecture as twin aspects of his ânobilityâ. Since, in that poem, proving his nobility seems to have been an important step in legitimising his role as ḥÄjib, it can be argued that al-Manṣūr perceived his military victories and cultural patronage (most especially in the form of the Cordoba mosque extension) as his most important âvirtuesâ. Another indication of al-Manṣūrâs self-perception is contained in a passage that concludes al-ḤijÄrÄ«âs anecdotes about HishÄm II, which Bariani has used to conclude that the caliph was not in full possession of his mental faculties (Chapter 1, âRuptureâ):
âI brought myself to Ibn AbÄ« Ê¿Ämir who, informed of HishÄmâs stroke of genius, knelt down repeating, âGod be praised, God be praised!â Finally al-Manṣūr said to me, âDo you not realize that in HishÄmâs very conduct, of which you disapprove, lies the salvation of the Muslims? There can be only two types of Sulá¹Än who are most beneficial for their subjects: the conquering, judicious and independent ruler, who knows what will happen and when is the time to withdraw himself; and the ruler like HishÄm, who needs someone to govern in his name. And the one who takes care of his power need not fear misfortune.ââ163
It would appear from this passage that al-Manṣūr considered himself a ruler of the first type: a âconquering, judicious and independent rulerâ, fulfilling the ideal of kingship since HishÄm himself was not capable of doing so.
These ideals sit well with the main themes around which the salaried poets, the shuÊ¿arÄʾ Ê¿ÄmiriyyÄ«n (Chapter 3) composed their panegyrics. If we recall the passage in which Ibn ḤayyÄn described the exodus of the Ê¿Ämirid poets from Cordoba as a result of al-MustaÊ¿Ä«nâs neglect of his patronage duty, we remember that they âcomposed in his praise good poems in which they appealed to religion (dÄ«n) and manly virtue (murūʾa), and most of them recited them openly in his public audienceâ.164 It can be assumed that these poets continued to celebrate the themes which had earned them success at the Ê¿Ämirid court. However, the English does not fully convey the range of meanings implied by the Arabic terms dÄ«n and murūʾa, both of which encompass extremely complex concepts. DÄ«n, for example, âcovers three things: IslÄm in its five elementsâ¦; ĪmÄn, Faith; IḥsÄn, Rightdoingâ;165 and has also been taken to encompass (Islamic) âcivilisationâ (tamaddun), the madÄ«na being the place where that âcivilisationâ is propagated. It might thus be generally translated as the pious deeds and lifestyle by which a Muslim contributes to the security and civilisation of his environment. Murūʾa, deriving from the basic word meaning âmanâ or âhuman beingâ (marʾ), âmeans the embodiment of those qualities which make up a manâ, and includes âgenerosityâ, âsense of honourâ, âvalourâ, âchivalryâ, âmanlinessâ, âcomprising all knightly virtuesâ.166 It also has a significance in terms of Muslim ethics and morals, âcovering a number of qualities, especially those of kings and lordsâ, and âin Muslim Spain ⦠it meant politeness and civilityâ.167
In combination, then, in dÄ«n and murūʾa â those concepts that earned favour in the poems recited by al-Manṣūrâs court poets â we can interpret the contrasting but complementary virtues of the ideal ruler: his physical courage, which he used for the defence of Islam, and his courtly refinement. The use of such concepts as the fundamental themes of Ê¿Ämirid panegyric recalls the literary genre known as âmirrors for princesâ, of which the KalÄ«la wa Dimna, discussed above, was a prime example. These were âmanuals of statecraftâ, which âtestified to the widespread interest not only in establishing the practical ethics of kingly conduct, but in defining the nature of kingship and the qualifications of the ideal sovereignâ.168 Such works would include chapters on the âConduct of Jihadâ, the âConduct of Kingsâ, the âCharacter of the Piousâ, the âVirtue of the ImÄmsâ, the âEtiquette of Islamâ, and the âLawful and Unlawfulâ.169 Such important ethical matters also recurred in panegyric poetry, though âthe ethical dimension of court poetry has received little serious attention ⦠despite abundant evidence ⦠for the view that an important function of poetry is moral instruction by exampleâ.170
Did Ê¿Ämirid poetry have such a didactic purpose? It seems, rather, that it was entirely adulatory, singing frequently of the Ê¿Ämiridsâ virtues in glowing terms. For example, al-Manṣūr was the
âson of noble kings, whose descent from Ḥimyar has occupied the summit of every genealogy,
Quintessence of their glories, pupil of their eyes, moon of their nights, and sun of their days,
The most worthy of their honour, the most victorious, the most generous, the most courageous on the day of battles, you are their knight,
Heir of the power of kings and receiver of their glory and greatness, born to lead knights in honour, he inherited the booty of kings.
Men of power and of virtues, whose crowns are worthy and proud of them.â171
Explicit in these verses is the notion that al-Manṣūr was the heir to the Umayyads, a concept which is rendered even more explicit in a poem by IbrÄhÄ«m ibn IdrÄ«s, who addresses al-Manṣūr as the âson of Umayyaâ.172 Other occurrences of such sentiments in Ibn DarrÄjâs dÄ«wÄn can be found at poem 99, ll. 19â20: âThose who reign in the name of God ⦠/ ⦠for them there are dwellings built in Paradiseâ; poem 100, l. 43, where al-Manṣūr is praised as a âman of letters, of glory, lord of the stars and of the Arabsâ; poem 115, ll. 12 and 31, âthe virtues, the generosity, the courage have made appear in him a noble kingâ; poem 119, ll. 10 and 13, âyour virtues have shone out in the midday brightness, and comparisons and metaphors are incapable of capturing their senseâ; and poem 126, l. 13, which is dedicated to al-Muáºaffar. Though al-Manṣūr did not â ultimately â attempt to rise to the caliphate itself, we have seen throughout this study that in his cultural and architectural patronage, he stated clearly that he saw himself as fulfilling the caliphâs role. This statement is arguably most explicit in his artistic patronage â in the very visible use of symbols which had come to be associated with the office of the caliphate, due to their adoption by the first Andalusi caliph and perhaps the fact that they emblematised the Umayyad army. In the Ê¿Ämiridsâ self-perception, they had just claim to use these images, since they possessed in abundance the appropriate kingly virtues. Their employment of such symbols was an important means by which the Ê¿Ämirids could demonstrate that they were the right men for the job, and thereby enhance the legitimacy of their rule.
While the resonant emblems of the lion-gazelle and heraldic eagle and the martial tone of the epigraphy symbolised the Ê¿Ämiridsâ military role, the artistic allusions to their architectural and literary patronage, and the prominence of imagery of flowers and nature, evoked the full gamut of princely virtues, in particular their construction of pious works. Al-Manṣūr had accomplished this most strikingly through the construction of Cordoba IV and the associated water infrastructure, of ablutions pavilion and cistern, but we can now see that the luxury arts were also implicated in the legitimisation of the dynasty. The Ê¿Ämirids used their art as the vehicles to project their âpublic imageâ as fulfilling the virtues of the ideal ruler. The messages on these objects would have been displayed in private contexts, within the Ê¿Ämirid palaces and gardens, where the regents relaxed in poetic soireÌes with the members of the CoÌrdoban elite who comprised their court. These intimate gatherings enabled the Ê¿Ämirids to build personal relationships with those noble families whose support they required to legitimise their de facto rule. In addition, this audience was well versed in the imagery of contemporary poetry, especially that sung in praise of the Ê¿Ämirids by their dÄ«wÄn of poets. They would have understood the mutuality of the literary and artistic imagery, all the better to understand that the marble basins encapsulated â petrified even â the poetic language of the rulersâ virtues, as praised in panegyric in terms of the âgenerosity-ruthlessness doubletâ.
Continente 1969, 131â132; EchevarrÃa 2011, 181â2.
Cómez Ramos 1982, 132â4. All his examples are taken from Pérès 1937, and therefore date from the Fitna and Taifa periods, since Pérèsâ study did not include poetry from the caliphal or Ê¿Ämirid periods.
Ettinghausen 1964 [1984], 167.
Cf. Bible I Kings 10:18â20: â(18) Then the king [Solomon] made a great throne inlaid with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. (19) The throne had six steps, and its back had a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them. (20) Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdomâ. On allusions to Solomonâs lion-protected throne in Islamic art, see Soucek 1976, 1993.
Now in the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, inv. I. 6171. See Annette Hagedorn, âLion from the Palace of Mushattaâ, in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers,
Les Andalousies, cat. 155.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 40â42 (§§23â25).
Fierro 2007, 107.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 40â42 (§§23â25).
See Hartnerâs section on âThe Lion Bull Combat, an Astronomical Symbolâ, in Ettinghausen 1964 [1984], 161â164.
See Ilisch 1984.
There is an extensive bibliography on the al-Mughīra pyxis, but for basic catalogue information, see Ferrandis 1935, vol. 1, cat. 13; Kühnel 1971, cat. 31. On the casket acquired by the David Collection in 2002, see Journal of the David Collection 2/2, cat. 10, and the article by Kjeld von Folsach in 2/1.
In his discussion of the lion-bull combat, Hartner says, âSince the constellation of the Deer sets simultaneously with the Pleiades, the other well-known motif, the Lion-Deer combat, has to be regarded as a symbol having the same meaning as the Lion-Bull combatâ: Ettinghausen 1964 [1984], 164. The often outlandish interpretations of this motif on the Ê¿Ämirid marble basins are outlined in Cómez Ramos 1982, 130â131. Amador de los RÃos 1877, 315â317, even believed the artist of al-Manṣūrâs basin to have been Persian, since he interpreted its iconography as representing the principles of Mazdaean dualism.
Gómez-Moreno 1951, 191; Cómez Ramos 1982, 133.
See Hamilton 1988. Khirbat al-Mafjar was probably built by al-WalÄ«d II (r. 743â744) before he became caliph.
Ettinghausen 1972, 44â46.
Behrens-Abouseif 1997, 14â16.
This theory was outlined in a paper entitled âGazelles and Lions: Political Symbols or Sex Symbols? The apse mosaic at Khirbat al-Mafjar revisitedâ, presented by Prof. Julie Scott Meisami at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, on 17 May 2002. On her concept of the âgenerosity-ruthlessness doubletâ, see Meisami 2003, 183â4: zakhm u raḥm in Persian, âwounding and mercyâ, âwhich are, respectively, the downfall of the rulerâs enemies and the support of the âfriendââ.
For example, Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 149 (§124), where the Muslims set upon their enemy like âbrave lionsâ; or 330 (§299) describing the Alhándega campaign (327/938â9), where the Muslim troops rushed forward onto the Christians âlike fierce lionsâ.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 231 (§207).
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 138 (§114), l. 10.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 46 (§28), second poem on this page, ll. 3â5.
HEM I:133. This epithet was given to him by his sworn enemy, the Abbasid caliph al-Manṣūr.
Anales, §180 (l. 18 on p. 198).
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 1, l. 44.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 106, l. 20.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 111, l. 17.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 126, ll. 28â29.
BayÄn III:18 [translation, 25].
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 116, ll. 9, 17.
EchevarrÃa 2011, 175.
BayÄn II:293 [translation, 455]; Dhikr BilÄd I:185â186 [II:197]; EchevarrÃa 2011, 238.
Kennedy 1996, 109.
BayÄn II:291 [translation, 452].
Behrens-Abouseif 1997, 14â16.
Cf. Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 58 (§38); Anales, §198 (p. 226): poem by Aḥmad ibn Ê¿Abd al-Malik (from 363/973â4): l. 23; Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 113 (written 993), l. 13.
Anales, §180 (p. 205): second poem by AbÅ« MujÄhid al-IstÄ«jÄ«, ll. 7â8, 13â14.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 105, ll. 19â20.
EchevarrÃa 2011, 176. Were ostriches considered a particularly ignoble animal?
Al-MaqqarÄ«, 206 (Arabic text given in Gayangos, II, 484â485, n. 17); Dhikr BilÄd I:190â191 [II:200â201]; Molina 1981, 226.
Ettinghausen 1964 [1984], 166.
Ferrandis 1935, vol. 1, cat. 25; Kühnel 1971, cat. 40.
Graves 2018, 199, notes that âthe lion protomeâ is a âstrikingly consistent feature of the kilgasâ, marble stands for earthenware waterpots made in Egypt from the twelfth century, and discusses the wider association between lions and water. More generally on the kilgas, see Graves 2015; 2018, 181â213.
Tanavoli 1985, 14, traces the relationship to the legend that the Zoroastrian goddess of water, Anahita, was made pregnant by Mithra, who was symbolized by a lion. Furthermore, if we understand the lion as symbolic of the constellation Leo, it is when the sun is in Leo that the Nile floods.
Cf. âIstiskÄʾâ, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition. Also, see Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 88 (§67); 159 (§132â133); 161 (§134); 190 (§165); 357â358 (§321â322). Also, BayÄn II:173 [translation, 276]; 204 [translation, 317â318]; 213 [translation, 330]. Bariani 2003, 157, discusses istisqÄʾ ceremonies c. 988â9 to call for rain.
Anales, §82 (p.118): ll. 5â6.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 110, l. 16.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 115, l. 28.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 107, ll. 29â30.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 101, l. 30.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 126, l. 15.
BayÄn II:297 [translation, 460].
Cf. for example, Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 102, praising the successes of al-Manṣūrâs two sons in mopping-up operations after the Santiago campaign, saying (l. 38), âThey have showered their hills with blood like rain which falls abundantly for the good of the faith â¦â Other instances of this image are Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poems 103, l. 21; 105, l. 7; 118, l. 32; 126, ll. 21â22.
Al-MaqqarÄ«, Analectes, I:371, translated in Ruggles 2000, 50; cf. also her n. 84; see also Anderson 2013, 111â3. This was a Roman aqueduct, refurbished by Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn III; part of it survives, still visible at Valdepuentes near MadÄ«nat al-ZahrÄʾ.
Ruggles 2000, 52.
Manzano 2019, 47â48.
Dhikr BilÄd I:153â154 [II:193]; see also Ibn AbÄ« ZarÊ¿ 1964, 115.
BayÄn II:251 [translation, 389].
Ettinghausen 1964 [1984], 166.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 111, l. 2.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 149, ll. 1â4. Does the use of âmalikâ in this poem suggest it was written after 996, when al-Manṣūr is said to have adopted the title âal-malik al-karÄ«mâ? (though Bariani 2003, 173â4, is dubious about whether he ever adopted such a title).
For example, Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 111, ll. 2, 10â11: âTender shady tree of your nobility, whose branches reach the highest spaces / And whose shade has spread out for the security of the Muslims and its fruits for the nourishment of the peopleâ; cf. also poems 77, l. 15; 100, l. 46; 116, l. 20.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 1 bis, l. 18.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 114, ll. 24 and 33.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 108, ll. 5, 22â23.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 105, l. 4.
Anales, §33 (p. 84): l. 4 of the poem composed by Muḥammad ibn al-Istījī.
Anales, §198 (pp. 225â6): ll. 7â8 of the poem by Aḥmad ibn Ê¿Abd al-Malik.
Anales, §237 (pp. 273â75): ll. 4â5 of the poem by Muḥammad ibn Shukhayá¹£.
See Ê¿ArÄ«b ibn SaÊ¿d/Pellat 1961. Six-sevenths of the revenue of al-Andalus was from agriculture: see Chalmeta 1992, 750â751.
On agriculture in al-Andalus, see the first two chapters of Ruggles 2000, 3â32. On the phenomenon of the tenth-century Cordoban munya as an âIslamic villaâ, see Anderson 2013; for a wider collection of studies on this phenomenon in the Islamic West, see Navarro Palazón and Trillo San José 2019.
Scheindlin 1986, 7.
Monroe 1974, 10.
Monroe 1971, 10.
For example, the lost KitÄb al-HadÄʾiq (âBook of Gardensâ) by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-JayyÄnÄ«, a poet of al-Ḥakamâs era: see Monés 1969, 211.
For example, al-MaqqarÄ«, 206, uses the fourteenth-century history by Ibn SimÄk, entitled Al-ZaharÄt al-manthÅ«ra fÄ« nukat al-akhbÄr al-maʾthÅ«ra, âThe Book of Scattered Flowers or the Memorable Deeds [of al-Manṣūr]â. Cf. Ibn SimÄk 1984.
Robinson 1995, 642.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 111, l. 2.
Grabar 1988, 115â116.
Menocal et al 2000, 214.
Apud BayÄn III:18â21 [translation, 25â28]. He goes on to give six nawriyyÄt by á¹¢ÄÊ¿id al-BaghdÄdÄ« and two by Ibn DarrÄj, on myrtle, lemon balm, narcissus, violets, stocks, roses and lilies. The two Ibn DarrÄj poems are translated and discussed in Monroe 1971, 9â10.
Robinson 2002, 118; Monroe 1971, 10.
Al-ḤimyarÄ« 1940, 132 (cited by Robinson 2002, 118) gives one occasion on which a poet accompanies floral-themed praises with an actual bouquet of flowers. The poem as a gift presented to the patron is a topos, and it may also be represented as a luxury object: cf. the motif in ll. 32â34 of Ibn DarrÄjâs first panegyric poem to SulaymÄn (Ibn DarrÄj 1969, 51â57 (poem 27)) where the poem is likened to a jewel. Cf. also the title of the book dedicated to al-Manṣūr by á¹¢ÄÊ¿id al-BaghdÄdÄ« â the KitÄb al-Fuṣūṣ, or âBook of Gemsâ.
Scheindlin 1986, 8â9.
Robinson 2007, 109. Naváscues y de Palacio 1964a, 244, describes this scene as âan open-air fiestaâ.
Beckwith 1989, 45. On the Byzantine silks, see also Muthesius 1995 and 1997, and Cutler 2003.
Hamidullah 1960, 287.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 264 (§238).
Ruggles 2000, 67.
Paz y Melia 1931, 147, chapter 133.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 78, l. 55.
Anales, §180 (p. 202): poem by Ê¿Abd al-Ê¿AzÄ«z b. Husayn al-QarawÄ«, l. 4, talking of Ḥasan ibn KÄnÅ«n.
Pérès 1990, 471, quoted by Cómez Ramos 1982, 132.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 109, ll. 19â24.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 107, ll. 36â39.
Manzano 2019, 173â4; Bennison 2007a, 75.
Anales, §26 (p. 68); see also GarcÃa Gómez 1967, 168â169.
Anales, §203 (pp. 237â238); cf. GarcÃa Gómez 1967, 168â169.
I would like to thank Xavier BallestÃn for confirming this. In an anecdote (related in BayÄn III:114 [translation, 103â104]), the ZanÄta chieftain of the BanÅ« BirzÄl reproaches the Umayyad caliph SulaymÄn for having appointed a ShiÊ¿i, Ê¿AlÄ« ibn ḤammÅ«d, as governor of Ceuta. Ê¿Abd AllÄh al-BirzÄlÄ« comments, âYou have made him a dragon/griffin/monster snake (thaÊ¿bÄn) when he was only a snake (aḥnÄsh)â. This political error came home to roost when a short time later Ê¿AlÄ« ibn ḤammÅ«d overthrew and killed SulaymÄn.
Ibn KhaldÅ«n 1969, 214â5, cited in Alexander 2000, 229.
Anales, §9 (pp. 48â50); cf. GarcÃa Gómez 1967, 168â169; Manzano 2019, 292â5.
Nicolle 2001, 13â14.
Nicolle 2001, 14.
Marsham 2009, 64â66.
The so-called âPendón de las Navas de Tolosaâ (Al-Andalus cat. 92, Maroc Médiéval 98â9) has been uncritically accepted as a banner seized by Alfonso VIII of Castile in his resounding defeat of the Almohads in 1212; however, more recent studies place its technique and decoration in the fourteenth century, and associate it with surviving Marinid banners, made in Fez: see Ali-de-Unzaga 2006, Ali-de-Unzaga 2007, Maroc Médiéval 542â7, cat. 330. The silk fragment tapestry-woven with epigraphic bands in gold thread found at the church of Colls in Huesca is often described as a banner, following a suggestion made by Cristina Partearroyo, but this is much more likely to be a á¹irÄz, with its mirror image inscriptions (only the basmala is preserved) on either side of a decorative band: Al-Andalus, cat. 22. Very few surviving textiles can be definitively identified as banners, though it seems that a textile in the Newberry Collection (Ashmolean Museum, inv. 1984.137), featuring a white appliqué lion on a blue cotton ground, may have been. The textile has been carbon dated to 980â1100, so it was certainly Fatimid-era. It was published by Suleman 2011, 223â225, fig. 86, who says that, rather than a banner carried in court processions, this âmay have functioned as one of the decorative textiles described by mediaeval historians that were used by the residents and shopkeepers of Fatimid Cairo to adorn their homes and shop-fronts during public holidays and court processionsâ.
MuseÌe du Louvre, Paris, inv. MAO 23.
Hinds 1996, 104 ff; see also Kennedy 2001, 99.
Hinds 1996, 105.
Hinds 1996, 108, and fig. 28.
Hinds 1996, fig. 4; and âÊ¿UkÄbâ, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition.
Kennedy 2001, 23.
Kennedy 2001, 29.
Kennedy 2001, 108.
Alexander 2000, 228. I would like to thank Stéphane Pradines for bringing this article to my attention.
Bennison 2014, 269â70.
Bennison 2014, 273.
Alexander 2000, 229.
Sanders 1994, 89. Sanders reconstructs the New Year procession at pp. 87â94, following the eye-witness description of Ibn al-Ṭuwayr, which âdates in all probability from the last three decades of Fatimid ruleâ (i.e. approx. 1140â70). See also the mentions of banners in the Book of Gifts and Rarities, see al-ḤijjÄwÄ« al-QaddÅ«mÄ« 1996, 157â158, and 231â232 on the khazÄʾin al-bunÅ«d.
Sanders 1994, 89, 93.
Sanders 1994, 89, 93, discussed at p. 96: âThe colors red and yellow were associated directly with the caliph and also appeared in the banners with the lionsâ.
Suleman 2011.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 250â251 (§§224â225).
âÊ¿UkÄbâ, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 265 (§239); this translation was prepared by Stuart Sears for Anderson and Rosser-Owen 2015.
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 200 (§§174â175).
Ibn ḤayyÄn 1981, 164 (§137).
Brett 2015, 153.
Brett 2015, 153â4.
Brett 2015, 155.
Jenkins 1968.
Casamar and Zozaya 1991, 56â57, who argue for a very precise dating of the embroidery to the early 930s precisely because of the introduction of the eagle to Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄnâs banners. More recently, see Ali-de-Unzaga 2012a, 2012b.
For al-Ḥakamâs pyxis, see Ferrandis, 1935, vol. 1, cat. 5; Kühnel 1971, cat. 27. For the âZamora pyxisâ, made for á¹¢ubḥ (which has generated a long bibliography), Ferrandis, 1935, vol. 1, cat. 4; Kühnel 1971, cat. 22; for a discussion of them as a pair, based on the close similarity of their mounts, see Rosser-Owen 2012, 309.
Bariani 2002a, 328, citing BayÄn II:277.
EchevarrÃa 2011, 160.
I owe this idea to José Miguel Puerta VÃlchez, who presented the Seville basin alongside an illustration of this scene from the copy of the KalÄ«la wa Dimna in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (MS Arabe 3465, folio 67r,
Atıl 1981, 80.
Atıl 1981, 55â60; Raby 1987â8.
Raby 1987â8, 386.
Atıl 1981, 61; Raby 1987â8, 386.
Raby 1987â8, 390.
Grube 1991, 36.
Grube 1991, 36.
Grube 1991, 36.
Grube 1991, figs 23 and 22 (relief on a stone pillar in Bodh-Gaya, sixth century).
This is based on the synopsis provided by Grube 1991, 155 (D2), with adaptations based on the Spanish translation kindly sent me by José Miguel Puerta VÃlchez.
Atıl 1981, 23, 80.
Prado-Vilar 2005, 154.
Atıl 1981, 61.
Puerta VÃlchez 2013a, 76 (English version p. 63).
Bloom 2001, 166â7.
Raby 1987â8, 382â6. The manuscript is Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS 397.
Prado-Vilar 2005, 143.
Prado-Vilar 2005, 143.
Prado-Vilar 2005, 154.
Grube 1991, 36.
Rosser-Owen 1999, 24â25, and discussion in Chapter 7 (3.1).
See Ocaña 1941: this word occurs on capitals produced in al-Ḥakamâs name between 363/973â4 and 364/974â5 (his #3 and #6).
SalÄma (âblamelessness, well-beingâ) occurs in the inscription of the ivory casket in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs (dated 355/966), which was made for an unspecified patron, âli-á¹£Äḥibi-hiâ: Kühnel 1971, 25. RafÊ¿a (âexalted statusâ) and karÄma (ânobility, esteemâ) both occur on the fountain basin made for al-Ḥakam (dated 360/970â971): Cabanelas 1980â81.
Lévi-Provençal 1931, 189 (#204), translates this phrase more neutrally, as âmay Allah assist him (them)â, but the verb wafaqa only has the sense of âassistâ in form V, and it is form II that is used in the Ê¿Ämirid inscriptions.
He had used ayyada-hu allÄh in the foundation inscription of the arsenal he built at Tortosa in 333/944â5: cf. Lévi-Provençal 1931, 83â84 (#86).
The inscription from the arsenal at Tortosa contains the phrase fa-tamma bi-Ê¿awn allÄh wa naá¹£ri-hi, cf. Lévi-Provençal, 1931, 83â84; and a burj built by al-Ḥakam at Baños de la Encina (Jaén), dated 357/968, contains the phrase fa-tamma wa kamala bi-ḥawl allÄh wa taʾyÄ«di-hi: Lévi-Provençal 1931, 134â135 (#150). This pairing of taʾyÄ«d with ḥawl conveys a clear sense of Allahâs power, which would be an appropriate concept for a military installation.
Bloom 1985, 31; Bloom 2011, 144. He notes that this phrase (QurʾÄn 61:13) is particularly used on objects made soon before the Fatimidsâ conquest of Egypt (such as the ivory casket made for al-MuÊ¿izz, now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid), and not afterwards.
Bariani 1998, 101; Bariani 2001, 420.
Ibn Hayyan, apud Ibn BassÄm 1989, I:i:50. Cf. Blachère 1933, 108, n. 3, 109; Stetkevych 1997, 11.
âDÄ«nâ, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition.
âMurūʾaâ, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition; definitions given by Hans Wehrâs Arabic-English dictionary.
âMurūʾaâ, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition.
Meisami 1987, 5, 180.
These titles come from the Baḥr al-FavÄʾid, a mid-twelfth-century âmirrorâ, on which see Meisami 1991.
Meisami 1987, 11â12.
Ibn DarrÄj 1969, poem 3, ll. 47â52.
BayÄn II:302 [translation, 468].