Muhammad al-Khushani
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Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥārith al-Khushanī, or Al-Khushanī of Qayrawān (born
Kairouan Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by t ...
around the early tenth century CE; died Córdoba, ?981 CE), was an
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
, jurist and judge.


Life

Al-Khushanī was born in Khushan in
Kairouan Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by t ...
, in Tunisia under the Umayyads. He studied in his home town and Tunis. However, in 923, following the rise of the Fatamid conquest in Tunisia, al-Khushani fled, like other
Maliki The ( ar, مَالِكِي) school is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas in the 8th century. The Maliki school of jurisprudence relies on the Quran and hadiths as primary ...
scholars at the time. He went first to
Ceuta Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...
, where he taught, and then on to the Umayyad court in Cordoba. In Spain, studying especially with Ḳāsim ibn Aṣbagh, he completed his legal training, and gained the patronage of the prince and later caliph in Cordoba, al-Ḥakam II. Al-Khushanī served accordingly as '' qāḍī'' of inheritances in
Pechina Pechina is a municipality of Province of Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is on the site of the ancient town of Urci. Pechina, called ''Bajjāna'' in Arabic, was the centre of a Yemeni colony during the period of the ...
; then as '' shūrā'' in Cordoba. He also practiced alchemy and medicine, perhaps subsisting on these after the death of al-Ḥakam in 976. The year of al-Khushanī's death is not certain. Some biographers give 981, but other dates circulated; they 'knew very little information about the last years of his life'.


Works

It is thought that al-Khushanī composed around a hundred works under the patronage of al-Ḥakam. Titles of works which seem not to have survived but are attributed to al-Khushanī include: * al-Ittifāḳ wa ’l-ik̲h̲tilāf fī madhhab Mālik * al-Taḥāṣur wa ’l-mughālāt * al-Futyā * al-Taʿrīf * al-Mawlid wa ’l-wafāt * al-Nasab * al-Iḳtibās * Taʾrīkh ʿUlamāʾ al-Andalus (biography) * K. Fuḳahāʾ al-Mālikiyya (biography) Of his surviving works, his biographical studies are most noted: * ''Taʾrīkh Quḍāt al-Andalus'', also known as ''Kitāb al-qudā bi-Qurtuba'', The work is filled with documents from the Andalusian archives,
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...
and biographical information about the
qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...
s of al-Andalus, particularly Córdoba, down to 968. In the assessment of Charles Pellat, al-Khushanī wrote 'in a lively and instructive manner; and if he lacks a critical spirit in relaying, for instance, the fictitious story of the first three judges in Cordoba, he nevertheless does not omit items of information which are sometimes unfavourable to the Umayyads'.Ch. Pellat, 'al- khushanī', in '' Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition'', ed. by P. Bearman and others, 12 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1960–2005), . * ''Ṭabaḳāt ʿulamāʾ Ifrīḳiya'', an extensive survey of the various
madhabs A ( ar, مذهب ', , "way to act". pl. مَذَاهِب , ) is a school of thought within ''fiqh'' (Islamic jurisprudence). The major Sunni Mathhab are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. They emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries CE an ...
in his time, including the
Hanafi The Hanafi school ( ar, حَنَفِية, translit=Ḥanafiyah; also called Hanafite in English), Hanafism, or the Hanafi fiqh, is the oldest and one of the four traditional major Sunni schools ( maddhab) of Islamic Law (Fiqh). It is named a ...
and Ismaili.''Classes des savants de l’Ifriqiya'', ed. by M. Ben Chcneb (Algiers 1915-20) Alongside the ''Ṭabaḳāt'' by Abu al-ʿArab, this was a major source for ʿIyād's ''Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-Ifrīḳiyyīn''. Al-Khushanī's work extends to scholars who did not belong to the Mālikī school, including people who had converted to S̲h̲īʿism in Ifrīḳiya under the Fāṭimids. Pellat concluded that 'this exile, unable to come to terms with the doctrine imposed upon his native land, may have written this work at the demand of al-Ḥakam, who was eager to know about the situation there; in this respect, the Ṭabaḳāt are interesting for the information which they give on the Fāṭimids, but the author, far from being impartial, paints a gloomy picture of the ''ʿulamāʾ'' who remained behind in Ifrīḳiya and were compelled, according to his view, to rally to the new masters, either out of financial cupidity or from fear of persecution'. According to Pellat, al-Khushanī was also 'something of a poet (though accused of committing faults here)'.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:al-Khushani, Muhammad 10th-century historians from al-Andalus 980s deaths Year of birth unknown Year of death uncertain 10th-century Arab people People from Kairouan