The literature of al-Andalus, also known as Andalusi literature (, ), was produced in al-Andalus, or Islamic Iberia, from the Muslim conquest in 711 to either the Catholic conquest of Granada in 1492 or the expulsion of the Moors ending in 1614. Andalusi literature was written primarily in Arabic, but also in Hebrew, Latin, and Romance.
Poetry was considered the prime literary genre in Arabic. Poetic forms such as the qaṣīda and maqāma were adopted from the Mashriq or Muslim East, while forms of strophic poetry such as the muwaššaḥ and its kharja as well as the popular zajal in Andalusi vernacular Arabic were developed in al-Andalus. Andalusi strophic poetry had an impact on poetic expression in Western Europe and the wider Muslim world.
Abdellah Hilaat's World Literature Encyclopedia divides the history of al-Andalus into two periods: the period of expansion, starting with the conquest of Hispania up to the first Taifa period, and the period of recession in which al-Andalus was ruled by two major African empires: the Almoravid and the Almohad.
Conquest
Arabic literature in al-Andalus began with the Umayyad conquest of Hispania starting in the year 711. The 20th century Moroccan scholar of literature Abdellah Guennoun cites the "Khutba of Tariq Ibn Ziyad", a Friday sermon of the Amazigh general Tariq ibn Ziyad to his soldiers upon landing in Iberia, as a first example.
The literature of the Muslim conquerors of Iberia, aside from the Quran, was limited to eastern strophic poetry that was popular in the early 7th century. The content of the conquerors' poetry was often boasting about noble heritage, celebrating courage in war, expressing nostalgia for homeland, or elegy for those lost in battle, though all that remains from this period is mentions and descriptions.
In contrast with the circumstances in the Visigothic invasion of Iberia, the Arabic that came with the Muslim invasion had the status of "a vehicle for a higher culture, a literate and literary civilization." From the eighth to the thirteenth century, the non-Latin forms of intellectual expression were dominant in the area.
Umayyad period (756–1031) In his History of Arabic Literature, Hanna Al-Fakhoury cites two main factors as shaping Andalusi society in the early Umayyad period: the mixing of the Arabs with other peoples and the desire to replicate the Mashriq. The bustling economy of al-Andalus allowed al-Hakam I to invest in education and literacy; he built 27 madrasas in Cordoba and sent missions to the east to procure books to be brought back to his library. al-Fakhoury cites Reinhart Dozy in his 1881 : "Almost all of Muslim Spain could read and write, while the upper class of Christian Europe could not, with the exception of the clergy." Cities—such as Córdoba, Seville, Granada, and Toledo—were the most important centers of knowledge in al-Andalus.
On religion The east was determined to spread Islam and protect it in distant Iberia, sending religious scholars, or ulamaa. Religious study grew and spread, and the Iberian Umayyads, for political reasons, adopted the Maliki school of jurisprudence, named after the Imam Malik ibn Anas and promoted by Abd al-Rahman al-Awza'i. A religious school was established, which published Malik's Muwatta.
This school produced a number of notable scholars, prominent among whom was Ibn 'Abd al-Barr. Al-Andalus witnessed great deliberation in Quranic exegesis, or tafsir, from competing schools of jurisprudence, or fiqh. Upon his return from the east, Baqi ibn Makhlad (817-889) unsuccessfully attempted to introduce the Shafi‘i school of fiqh, though Ibn Hazm (994-1064) considered Makhlad's exegesis favorable to Tafsir al-Tabari. The Zahiri school was, however, introduced by Ibn Qasim al-Qaysi, and further supported by Mundhir ibn Sa'īd al-Ballūṭī. It was also heralded by Ibn Hazm, a polymath at the forefront of all kinds of literary production in the 11th century, widely acknowledged as the father of comparative religious studies,Joseph A. Kechichian, A mind of his own. Gulf News: 21:30 December 20, 2012. and who wrote (The Separator Concerning Religions, Heresies, and Sects).
The Muʿtazila school and philosophy also developed in al-Andalus, as attested to in the book of Ibn Mura (931).
On language The study of language spread and was invigorated by the migration of the linguist (967), who migrated from Baghdad to Cordoba and wrote a two-volume work entitled based on his teachings at the Mosque of Córdoba. He also authored a 5000-page compendium on language and an-Nawādir. Some of his contemporaries were (968), (992), and Ibn al-Qūṭiyya (977). Ibn Sidah (1066) wrote and .
On history At first, Andalusi writers mixed history with legend, as did. The so-called "Syrian chronicle", a history of events in the latter half of the 8th century, probably written around 800, is the earliest Arabic history of al-Andalus. It is known today, however, only as the larger part of the 11th-century Akhbār majmūʿa. The author of the Syrian chronicle is unknown, but may have been Abu Ghalib Tammam ibn Alkama, who came to al-Andalus with the Syrian army in 741.. Tammam's descendant, Tammam ibn Alkama al-Wazir (d. 896), wrote poetry, including a lost urjūza on the history of al-Andalus.
They later wrote annals in the format of al-Tabari's text History of the Prophets and Kings, which (980) complemented with contemporary annals. Most historians were interested in the history of Hispania, tracing the chronology of its history by kings and princes. Encyclopedias of people also became popular, such as encyclopedias of judges, doctors, and writers. The most important of these was told the history of al-Andalus from the Islamic conquest to the time of the author, as seen in the work of the Umayyad court historian and genealogist Ahmed ar-Razi (955) News of the Kings of al-Andalus () and that of his son Isa, who continued his father's work and whom Ibn al-Qūṭiyya cited. ar-Razi was also cited by Ibn Hayyan in . The most important historical work of this period was Said al-Andalusi's Tabaqat ul-Umam, which chronicled the history of the Greeks and the Romans as well.
On geography Among the prominent writers in geography—besides Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsa al-Rāzī, who described al-Andalus with great skill—there was Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakri (1094).
On math and astronomy
Writing in math and astronomy flourished in this period with the influence of Maslama al-Majriti (1007), who developed the work of Ptolemy and al-Khwarizmi. Ibn al-Saffar wrote about the astrolabe and influenced European science into the 15th century. Ibn al-Samh was a mathematician who also wrote about astrolabes.
On medicine and agriculture Works in medicine and agriculture also flourished under Abd al-Rahman III. Among writers in these topics there were al-Zahrawi (1013).
Ibn al-Kattani, also known as al-Mutatabbib, wrote about medicine, philosophy, and logic.
On alchemy (908–964) authored Rutbat al-ḥakīm, a widely copied treatise on alchemy.
Literary works The collection Al-ʿIqd al-Farīd by Ibn Abd Rabbih (940) could be considered the first Andalusi literary work, though its contents relate to the Mashriq.
Muhammad ibn Hani al-Andalusi al-Azdi, a North African poet, studied in al-Andalus.
The poet al-Ghazal of Jaén served as a diplomat in 840 and 845. His poetry is quoted extensively by Ibn Dihya..
Poetry
Dwight Reynolds writes of a 'rhyme revolution' in al-Andalus in the 10th and 11th centuries, in which the Christian and Jewish populations of al-Andalus encountered the rhyme schemes of Arabic poetry, with "possible connections with the sudden appearance of rhymed vernacular poetry in medieval Europe," referring to the troubadours.
From around the 9th century, the Arab and Hispanic elements of al-Andalus began to coalesce, giving birth to a new Arab literature, evident in the new poetic form: the muwashshah (pl. muwashshahat). According to Abd Allah Khalil Haylat, the Romance kharjas present in some muwashshahat marked the first instance of language mixing in Arab poetry as well as the syncretism of Arab and Hispanic cultures. The muwashshah remained sung in Standard Arabic although its scheme and meter changed and the Ibero-Romance ending was added. Some famous examples include "Lamma Bada Yatathanna" and "Jadaka al-Ghaithu". In spite of its widespread popularity and its favorability among Mashreqi critics, the muwashshah remained a form inferior to classical Arabic forms that varied only minimally in the courts of the Islamic west, due to the folksy nature of the muwashshah.
The muwashshah would typically end with a closing stanza, or a kharja, in a Romance language or Arabic vernacular—except in praise poems, in which the closing stanza would also be in Standard Arabic.
The muwashshah has gained importance recently among Orientalists because of its possible connection to early Spanish and European folk poetry and the troubadour tradition.
Eastern influence Andalusi literature was heavily influenced by Eastern styles, with court literature often replicating eastern forms. Under Abd al-Rahman II, came Ziryab (857)—the mythic poet, artist, musician and teacher—from the Abbasid Empire in the East. He gave Andalusi society Baghdadi influence.
The qiyān were a social class of non-free women trained as entertainers. The qiyān brought from the Abbasid East were conduits of art, literature, and culture.
Among the Mashreqi poets most influential in the Maghreb was al-Mutanabbi (965), whose poetry was commented on by , , and Ibn Sidah. The court poets of Cordoba followed his footsteps in varying and mastering their craft. The maqamas of the Persian poet Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadani were also embraced in al-Andalus, and influenced Ibn Malik, Ibn Sharaf, and . The maqama known as Al-Maqama al-Qurtubiya, attributed to al-Fath ibn Khaqan, is notable as it is a poem of invective satirizing Ibn as-Sayid al-Batalyawsi. According to Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, the use of the maqama form for invective appears to be an Andalusi innovation.
Court poetry followed tradition until the 11th century, when it took a bold new form: the Umayyad caliphs sponsored literature and worked to gather texts, as evidenced in the library of al-Hakam II. As a result, a new school of court poets appeared, most important of whom was (982). However, urban Andalusi poetry started with Ibn Darraj al-Qastalli (1030), under Caliph al-Mansur, who burned the library of al-Hakam fearing that science and philosophy were a threat to religion. and were among the most prominent of this style and period.
led a movement of poets of the aristocracy opposed to the folksy muwashshah and fanatical about eloquent poetry and orthodox Classical Arabic. He outlined his ideas in his book at-Tawabi' waz-Zawabi''' (), a fictional story about a journey through the world of the Jinn. Ibn Hazm, in his analysis of in The Ring of the Dove, is considered a member of this school, though his poetry is of a lower grade.
Judeo-Andalusi literature
The literary traditions of Hebrew—which was used for prayer and ceremonial writings, but not for oral communication—experienced a revolution through contact with Arabic and its literary traditions. Consuelo López Morillas writes that Jews in al-Andalus "wrote Hebrew poetry using Arabic prosodic models and adopted nearly the entire range of Arabic poetic genres and stylistic devices in Hebrew," looking to Biblical Hebrew as a source for literary expression as Muslims looked to Quranic Arabic.
Jewish writers in al-Andalus were sponsored by courtiers such as Hasdai ibn Shaprut (905-975) Samuel ibn Naghrillah (993-1056). Jonah ibn Janah (990-1055) wrote a book of Hebrew.