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Abu al-Qasim ibn Hammud ibn al-Hajar () was a senior official or Qaid (, Arabic for 'commander') of the
Norman Kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily (; ; ) was a state that existed in Sicily and the southern Italian Peninsula as well as, for a time, in Northern Africa, from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County o ...
, and a leader of the
Muslim community ' (; ) is an Arabic word meaning Muslim identity, nation, religious community, or the concept of a Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers ( '). It is a synonym for ' (, lit. 'the Islamic nation'); it is commonly used to mean the collective comm ...
of
Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
.


Origin and family

Abu al-Qasim ibn Hammud was an eminent person: the contemporary traveller
Ibn Jubayr Ibn Jubayr (1 September 1145 – 29 November 1217; ), also written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus. His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183 to 11 ...
called him "the hereditary leader of the Muslims of Sicily", and the chronicler
Hugo Falcandus Hugo Falcandus was a historian who chronicled the reigns of William I of Sicily and the minority of his son William II in a highly critical work entitled ''The History of the Tyrants of Sicily'' (or ''Liber de Regno Sicilie''). The Latin of the wo ...
calls him "the most noble and powerful of the Sicilian Muslims". The poet
Ibn Qalaqis Abu ʾl-Fatḥ Naṣr Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh (; 1137–1172), known as Ibn Qalāqis (or Ḳalāḳis) and also al-Qāḍī al-aʿazz ("he most honorable judge"), was an Egyptian Arab poet and author. He spent his last few years travelling widel ...
, who was his guest and client while on the island, claimed that Abu al-Qasim descended from
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
via his daughter
Fatimah Fatima bint Muhammad (; 605/15–632 CE), commonly known as Fatima al-Zahra' (), was the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid, Khadija. Fatima's husband was Ali, the fourth of the Rashidun caliphs and ...
and
Ali ibn Abi Talib Ali ibn Abi Talib (; ) was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from until Assassination of Ali, his assassination in 661, as well as the first imamate in Shia doctrine, Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muha ...
, the
Idrisid dynasty The Idrisid dynasty or Idrisids ( ') were an Arabs, Arab Muslims, Muslim dynasty from 788 to 974, ruling most of present-day Morocco and parts of present-day western Algeria. Named after the founder, Idris I of Morocco, Idris I, the Idrisids were ...
of
Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
, and the
Hammudid dynasty The Hammudid dynasty () was an Arab Muslim family that briefly ruled the Caliphate of CórdobaLane-Poole (1894), p.21 and the taifas of Málaga and Algeciras and nominal control in Ceuta. The dynasty The dynasty is named after their ancestor, Ha ...
of
al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...
. However, the explicit link between Abu al-Qasim's family, the Banu Hajar, and the Hammudids is unknown, and although the claimed ancestors were
Shi'a Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor ( caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community ( imam). However, his right is understoo ...
, Abu al-Qasim himself was most likely
Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...
, since he named his sons after the first three
caliphs A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the enti ...
, casting doubts on Ibn Qalaqis' claims. Indeed, Abu al-Qasim himself is recorded as claiming once to be descended from the
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
caliph
Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (; February 720) was the eighth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 717 until his death in 720. He is credited to have instituted significant reforms to the Umayyad central government, by making it much more efficient and ...
. Several scholars have tried in the past to link Abu al-Qasim's ancestry with a certain Chamutus, who defended
Enna Enna ( or ; ; , less frequently ), known from the Middle Ages until 1926 as Castrogiovanni ( ), is a city and located roughly at the center of Sicily, southern Italy, in the province of Enna, towering above the surrounding countryside. It has e ...
against the Norman conqueror Roger I in 1087, but this is not substantiated. Abu al-Qasim's father, Abu Abdallah Hammud, was also a . He may be the Ibn Abi'l-Qasim who was the patron of Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli, and, to whom the latter dedicated his
mirror for princes Mirrors for princes or mirrors of princes () constituted a literary genre of didactic political writings throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was part of the broader speculum or mirror literature genre. The Latin term ''speculum reg ...
. Abu al-Qasim's brother, Abu Ali Hasan, was a scholar and jurist ().


Life

The historian Jeremy Johns suggests that Abu al-Qasim ibn Hammud is first mentioned in a loan agreement of September 1162, where ('the Qaid Abu al-Qasim') is mentioned. In 1167, Abu al-Qasim supported the master chamberlain,
Richard the Qaid Richard the Qaid () was a senior official ('' qāʾid'', commander) of the royal council ('' curia regis'' or '' diwan'') in the court of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily at Palermo during the latter years of the reign of William I of Sicily and during ...
, in his designs against the chancellor,
Stephen du Perche Stephen du Perche (1137 or 1138 – 1169) was the chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily (1166–68) and Archbishop of Palermo (1167–68) during the early regency of his cousin, the queen dowager Margaret of Navarre (1166–71). Stephen is desc ...
. Falcandus claims that this was because Stephen seemed to favour his rival, the Qaid Sedictus, "the richest of the Muslims" (possibly to be identified with al-Sadid Abu al-Makarim Hibat Allah ibn al-Husri). Abu al-Qasim was a patron of scholars and poets, including Ibn Qalaqis, the poet
al-Umawi Abū ʿAbdallāh Yaʿīsh ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf ibn Simāk al-Andalusī al-Umawī () (1400? in Al-Andalus – 1489 in Damascus, Mamluk Sultanate) was a 15th-century Spanish-Arab mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extens ...
, and the Abu Ali Hasan ibn Hammud. Other members of this circle were the judge () Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Raja and members of the court and government such as Richard the Qaid, the military commander Gharat ibn Jawshan, or the scholar () Abu Amr Uthman ibn al-Muhadhdhib al-Judhami. Abu al-Qasim clearly had a position at the royal council ( in Arabic), being mentioned twice as its member in documents, in June 1168 and again in November 1173, while Ibn Qalaqis compared him to legendary administrators such as Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya, or the
Buyid The Buyid dynasty or Buyid Empire was a Zaydi and later Twelver Shi'a dynasty of Daylamite origin. Founded by Imad al-Dawla, they mainly ruled over central and southern Iran and Iraq from 934 to 1062. Coupled with the rise of other Iranian dyna ...
viziers Abu al-Fadl Muhammad ibn al-Husayn, Abu al-Qasim Isma'il ibn al-Abbas, and Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Hilal. He appears to have fallen from favour at court sometime after, but, according to Ibn Jubayr, in 1184/5 he was still occasionally employed in government affairs. By that time, Abu al-Qasim had become disillusioned with the prospects of continued Norman rule for the Muslims of Sicily, as the Norman kings exerted pressure on Muslims to convert to Christianity. In 1175, he is known to have sent letters to
Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...
urging him to conquer Sicily, and a decade later, shortly before he was met by Ibn Jubayr, he was accused of sending similar proposals to the
Almohads The Almohad Caliphate (; or or from ) or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa (the Maghreb). The Almohad ...
of Morocco, and was forced to pay fines and surrender much of his property. His subsequent fate is unknown, but only four years after his meeting with Ibn Jubayr, the first of a series of Muslim rebellion broke out in Sicily, that would eventually lead to the complete eradication of Islam from the island. Some of his descendants certainly remained on the island, but with Christian names, in the 13th century.


References


Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Abul-Qasim Ibn Hammud Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 12th-century births 12th-century Sicilian people 12th-century Arab people Sicilian Arabs