Names Found in The Travels of Ibn Jubayr
collected and arranged by Basil Dragonstrike


        In around 1120 CE there was founded a movement in what is now called Morocco, seeking to "reform" Islam in a rather puritan and simplistic fashion. They called themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn; this is usually Englished as the Almohads. By 1147 CE they overthrew the Almoravids in Morocco, and by 1172 they controlled all of al-Andalus, the Islamic parts of the Iberian Peninsula.
        In 1182 CE, the Almohad governor of Gharnata (Englished as Granada) summonded his secretary, Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr (usually called simply ibn Jubayr). The governor offered ibn Jubayr a glass of wine, but ibn Jubayr tried to decline, as wine is forbidden and he had never let it touch his lips. The governor thereupon forced ibn Jubayr to drink seven goblet-fuls. Immediately after, the governor suddenly repented, and had the goblet filled with gold, seven times over, giving the money to ibn Jubayr. Ibn Jubayr then decided the only way to expiate his sin was to go on Hajj, the pilgrimage to Makka; the money the governor had given was to be used for this purpose.
        At least, such is the story given to explain ibn Jubayr's suddenly taking leave of his cushy job and setting out on the hard road from one end of the Mediterranean to the other and beyond. Undoubtedly many others before, and all through the Middle Ages afterward, made this journey. But ibn Jubayr did more; he kept a diary, and published it after he returned home, two years and three months after he set out.
        That diary has come down to the present day. In 1952 CE R. J. C. Broadhurst published his translation into English of ibn Jubayr's diary, titled The Travels of Ibn Jubayr. I have taken all the personal names from Broadhurst's work, and arranged them into lists. Note that Broadhurst, constrained by available typesetting technology, did not used dots under letters (such as ḍ, ẓ, Ḥ, etc.) nor macrons (such as ū, Ā, etc.) (though he does distinguish between hamza [ʼ] and ʻayn [ʻ]). As he says in the Introduction, "In transliteration I have followed the orthodox system, save that printers' difficulties have dictated the dropping of diacritical points and macrons,..." Thus, the names in these lists should be used with caution. I have chosen to copy the names just as Broadhurst published them, even when I knew how to spell them with the dots and macrons. However, the rare "Mohammad" has been changed to Muhammad.


A note on the form of this article: I have arranged the names I found into a number of different lists, and put each list on its own page. There is one page for isms (essentially given names), one for laqabs/nisbas (bynames), and one for al-Dīn-style titular names. Further information is provided on each page.

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