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.
Return to "Collected Names"