ʿĪsā ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī (died 980) was a
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
historian who wrote a continuation of the chronicle ''Akhbār mulūk al-Andalus'', the first narrative history of
Islamic rule in Spain, which was written by his father,
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsa al-Rāzī Aḥmad al-Rāzī (April 888 – 1 November 955), full name Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Rāzī al-Kinānī, was a Muslim historian of Persian origin who wrote the first narrative history of Islamic rule in Spain. Later Muslim his ...
.
The
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
version of the ''Akhbār mulūk al-Andalus'' along with ʿĪsā's contribution to it is now lost. All that survives of ʿĪsā's part are quotations in other Arabic histories. It appears that he began with the accession of
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III
ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam al-Rabdī ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dākhil () or ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (890 - 961), was the Umayyad Emir of Córdoba from 912 to 92 ...
as
emir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cer ...
in 912. His sections are richer in detail than his father's and reflect the cultural interests of the court of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and his successor,
al-Ḥakam II. The work may have been dedicated to the latter, who died in 976. There is evidence of the use of Christian sources, as in the use of the
Spanish era
The Spanish era ( la, Æra Hispanica), sometimes called the era of Caesar, was a calendar era (year numbering system) commonly used in the states of the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th century until the 15th, when it was phased out in favour of the ...
in addition to the
Islamic era. ʿĪsā may have had access to the history of the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
by Bishop
Gotmar that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān had commissioned.
Ibn Ḥayyān
Abū Marwān Ḥayyān ibn Khalaf ibn Ḥusayn ibn Ḥayyān al-Qurṭubī () (987–1075), usually known as Ibn Hayyan, was a Muslim historian from Al-Andalus.
Born at Córdoba, his father was an important official at the court of the Andalusi ...
quotes ʿĪsā's history of al-Ḥakam's reign from 971 to 975 in his ''Muqtabis''. Of Aḥmad and ʿĪsā, Ibn Ḥayyān writes, "Together they endowed the Andalusis with a science
istoriographythey had not hitherto practised with success."
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980 deaths
10th-century Al-Andalus people
10th-century Arabic writers
10th-century historians
Muslim historians of Al-Andalus
Writers of Iranian descent
es:Isa ibn Ahmad al-Razi