Tammam ibn Alkama al-Wazir

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Tammām ibn ʿĀmir ibn Aḥmad ibn Ghālib ibn Tammām ibn ʿAlḳama al-Thaḳafī al-Wazīr[a] (803/810–896) was an Arab high official and poet in the Emirate of Córdoba. He made an important historiographical contribution to the literature of al-Andalus.[1]

Ibn ʿAlḳama was a descendant of Abū Ghālib Tammām ibn ʿAlḳama of the Banū Thaḳīf. He is sometimes confused with his ancestor. There are conflicting records of his birth year. He was said to be 96 lunar years old when he died in AD 896 (AH 283), which would place his birth in 803 (AH 187). Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, citing Ibn al-Abbār, however, places his birth in 809 or 810 (AH 194).[1]

Ibn ʿAlḳama held the office of vizier (wazīr) under the emirs Muḥammad I (852–886), al-Mundhir (886–888) and ʿAbd Allāh (888–912). He was dismissed from the post by ʿAbd Allāh.[1]

Although he was famous as an Arabic poet, only a few lines of Ibn ʿAlḳama's poetry are known. These are quoted by Ibn al-Abbār, who extols a lost urjūza by Ibn ʿAlḳama that covered the Islamic conquest of Spain (711) and all the wars fought there from that time down to the end of the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II in 852, which is probably the time when it was written. It apparently contained valuable historical information. It gave the names of the governors of al-Andalus before the emirate and the emirs thereafter. What Ibn al-Qūṭiyya knew of his ancestor he drew from the lost urjūza of Ibn ʿAlḳama.[1] Ibn Diḥya cites Ibn ʿAlḳama as his authority for al-Ghazāl's embassy to the Vikings. He records that the former got his information from direct questioning of the latter, but Ibn Diḥya is not an entirely reliable source. There is no evidence of a prose work by Ibn ʿAlḳama.[1][2]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Also transliterated ibn ʿAlqama al-Thaqafī.

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e Dunlop, D. M. (1971). "Ibn ʿAlḳama, Tammām". In Lewis, B.; Ménage, V. L.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume III: H–Iram. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 701–702. OCLC 495469525.
  2. ^ Hermes, Nizar F. (2014). "The Moor's First Sight: An Arab Poet in a Ninth-Century Viking Court". In Anne R. Richards; Iraj Omidvar (eds.). Historic Engagements with Occidental Cultures, Religions, Powers. Springer. pp. 57–69. doi:10.1057/9781137405029_3.
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