Ibn Bashkuwāl, Khalaf ibn ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Mas'ud ibn Musa ibn Bashkuwāl ibn Yûsuf al-Ansârī,
Life
His ancestry was
Arabs and was a descendant of al-Ansar
- he was known as Ibn Bashkuwāl ("son of Pasqual") in the
Valencia region. His first teacher was his father (d.1139), to whom he dedicates a section in his biographical work. He studied with the most famous scholars of his time: Ibn al-'Arabī al-Ma'āfirī and the lawyer Abūl-Walīd ibn Ruschd (died 1126), the grandfather of the philosopher Averroës. In his hometown he worked as a consulting lawyer (faqīh mušāwar)
[For the meaning: Reinhart Dozy: Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes. Brill. Leiden 1867. Vol. 1, p. 801; on the function: Christian Müller: Court practice in the city-state of Córdoba. The right of society in a Malay-Islamic legal tradition of the 5th/11th century. Brill. Leiden. 1999. pp. 151-154.] and for a short time as deputy Qādī in Seville under Ibn al-'Arabī. It appears he never travelled to the East and his scholarship derived from the Andalusian-Islamic tradition. His biographer
Ibn al-Abbar (d. Jan 1260)
[ The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol.3, p.673] mentions 41 scholars in Córdoba and Seville, with whom he studied.
[Manuela Marín (1991), pp. 17-20] His library held works by authors from the Islamic East; of which is the
K. as-Siyar from Abū Ishāq al-Fazārī, on whose title page he is documented as the owner of the work.
[Miklos Muranyi: The Kitāb al-Siyar of Abū Isḥāq al-Siyar Fazārī. The manuscript of the Qarawiyyin Library at Fez. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. 6 (1985), p. 67; Fig. II and V.]
He died in January 1183 and was buried in the cemetery known then as Ibn 'Abbās Scholars’ Cemetery in Córdoba[Torrés Balbás: Cementerios hispanomusulmanes. In al-Andalus 22 (1957), p. 165.]
Works
Ibn Bashkuwāl's biographers attribute him authorship of twenty-six known books, treatises and monographs of biographical content,
[Manuela Marín (1991), pp.23-25] and list his teachers and the texts he studied.
[Heinrich Schützinger: The Kitāb al-Mu'ǧam of Abū Bakr al-Ismā'īlī. (Treatises for the News of the East, Vol. XLIII, 3. Wiesbaden 1978), pp. 25, No. 31.] Among his few surviving works are:
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Aṣ-ṣila fī ta'rīḫ a'immat al-Andalus (الصلة في تاريخ أئمة الأندلس), ‘Continuation of the scholarly history of al-Andalus’; continuation of Ibn al-Faradi's (d. 1013) famous biographical dictionary of al-Andalus's scholars,
[ The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol. 3, p. 762] which contains 1541[1541 is the total of entries in the series Al-maktaba al-andalusiyya , 6. In two vols., Cairo 1966.] biographies of 11th and 12th century Andalusian scholars. In a dedicated chapter (faṣl) he presents the life of the so-called "strangers" (al-ghurabā), who came to al-Andalus from the Orient and North Africa.[ Edited by F. Codera. Madrid 1882-1883 in two volumes]
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Ibn al-Abbar (1199-1260) from Valencia
[Edited by F. Codera. Madrid 1888-1889 in two volumes. The beginning of the work up to the letter Gimel appeared in Algiers in 1920]
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Another supplement and continuation of Ibn Baškuwāl's work was written by Ibn az-Zubair al-Gharnāṭī (1230, Jaén (Jayyān) – 1309, Granada (Gharnāṭa))
[ The Encyclopedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol.3, p.976] entitled ilat aṣ-ṣila ('The continuation of the ṣila') or: 'The story of the scholars of al-Andalus, in which he (the author) of the Kitāb aṣ-ṣila continued by Ibn Baškuwāl'.[The statement in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. Vol.3, p.673, where the continuation of Takmila by Ibn al-Abbār is wrong.] This book deals with the Andalusian scholars of the 12th and 13th centuries. A fragment of the work was published by the French orientalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal in 1937 (Rabat). Three further volumes with corrections and additions to the first edition were published in 1993 (Rabat).[Edited by 'Abd as-Salām al-Harrās and Sa'īd A'rāb. Publications of the Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs.]
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Kitāb ġawāmiḍ al-asmā' al-mubhama al-wāqi'a fī-'l-aḥādīṯ al-musnada (كتاب غوامض الأسماء المبهمة الواقعة في الأحاديث المسندة ), ‘Secrets of indistinct names found in Hadiths with complete Isnads’; two-volume biographical compilation and explanation of personal names, names of ancestry contradictorily, or incorrectly, reported in the literature.
[Beirut, 1987.]
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Shuyūḥ'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb al-Qurashī (شيوخ عبد الله بن وهب القرشي ), ‘Teachers of 'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb al-Qurashī’; biographical dictionary of teachers of the Egyptian scholar Ibn Wahb
[See: Fuat Sezgin (1967), p.466, n.4. The note "ibn private possession of Ibr. al-Kattānī in Rabāṭ" should be deleted.] with rich information about its importance as a primary source of Ibn Wahb. Contains an appended biography of Ibn Wahb.[Edited by 'Āmir Ḥasan Ṣabrī. Beirut 2007]
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Kitāb al-mustaġīṯīn bi-lāhāhi (كتاب المستغيثين بالله), ‘Book of the beseechers of God’; collected hadith with complete isnad traditions containing the Holy Du'ā ' intercessions.
[Published and translated into Spanish by Manuela Marín (1991)] In this work Ibn Bashkuwāl cites the titles and authors of thirteen source works.[Manuela Marín (1991), pp.29-33.] At the beginning of this collection for example, the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad in the Battle of Badr is linked to the Qur’ān verse:
Literature
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The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill. Leiden. Vol. 3, p. 733
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Manuela Marín (ed.): Ibn Baškuwāl (m 578/1183): Kitāb al-mustagīṯīn bi-llāh. (En busca del socorro divino). Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas. 8th Madrid 1991.
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Carl Brockelmann: History of Arabic Literature. 2nd Edition. Brill, Leiden 1943. Vol.1, p. 415
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Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature. Vol.1. Brill, Leiden 1967.
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Qāsim'Alī Sa'd: Muḥaddiṯ al-Andalus al-Ḥāfiẓ al-mu'arriḫ Abū'l-Qāsim b. Baškuwāl. Šaḫṣiyyatu-hu wa-mu'allafātu-hu. ('The Hadith scholar of al-Andalus, the historian Abū'l-Qāsim b Baškuwāl, his personality and his works'). In: Maǧallat Ǧāmi'at Umm al-Qurā li-'ulūm aš-šarī'a wa -'l-luġa al-'arabiyya wa-dābi-hā. Vol.18, n.28 (Mecca, 2003), p. 222-288 (in Arabic)
