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U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 85
Articles
AN ALMOHAD COPY OF THE KITĀB AL-AĠĀNĪ IN SANAA
1
Umberto Bongianino
(Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford)
with the collaboration of
Anne Regourd
(CNRS, UMR 7192; Head of the Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen)
Abstract
This note presents a rediscovered manuscript from the Islamic West today in the Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, Sanaa.
It is a fair copy of the third volume of the Kitāb al-aġānī, probably produced in al-Andalus in the late
twelfth century. The inscriptions on its title page allow us to connect it with the library of the Almohad
prince Abū Zakariyāʾ Yaḥyā (fl. 585/1190) and two subsequent owners. It can be argued that the manu-
script was kept in Marrakesh, possibly for centuries, before being brought to Yemen. That may have hap-
pened before the mid-eighteenth century.
Résumé
Une copie almohade du Kitāb al-aġānī à Sanaa
Cette note présente un manuscrit tout juste redécouvert, venant de l’Ouest musulman et actuellement
conservé à Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, Sanaa. Il s’agit d’une bonne copie du troisième volume du Kitāb al-aġānī,
probablement effectuée en al-Andalus à la fin du xiie s. Les inscriptions sur sa page de titre nous permet-
tent de le relier à la bibliothèque d’un Prince almohade, Abū Zakariyāʾ Yaḥyā (vivant en 585/1190), puis à
deux autres propriétaires. On peut soutenir que le manuscrit s’est trouvé à Marrakesh, sans doute plu-
sieurs siècles, avant de parvenir au Yémen, peut-être dès avant le milieu du xviiie s.
1
The authors would like to thank warmly the staff of Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt for providing us with high resolution
images of the manuscript for publication, allowing us to complete our reading of its marginal notes. Spe-
cial acknowledgments are due to Hamdi al-Razihi, Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, for his constant help and the useful
information he was willing to share with us. Without their help, this article would not have come to frui-
tion.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 86
Keywords
Kitāb al-aġānī — Maġribī script — al-Andalus — 12th century — Almohads — Sanaa — Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt
Mots-clés
Kitāb al-aġānī — écriture maghrébine — al-Andalus — xiie s. — Almohades — Sanaa — Dār al-
maḫṭūṭāt
———
——
—
I. Introduction
The Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt in Sanaa houses an important paper codex, in relatively good con-
ditions, written in an elegant Maghribī round script. It contains the third volume of the
Kitāb al-aġānī, the encyclopaedic collection of poems and songs attributed to Abū al-
Faraǧ ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn al-Iṣfahānī (284/897–356/967). The Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt acquired the
manuscript in 1986, allegedly from the private library of a family of Yemeni scholars who
had owned it for more than 150 years.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 87
Ill. 1. Ms. Sanaa, Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, the third vol. of the Kitāb al-aġānī,
the encyclopaedic collection of poems and songs attributed to
Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (284/897–356/967), title page with table of contents.
II. Physical description of the manuscript
The manuscript consists of 184 folios measuring 28.5 × 20 cm. The text is neatly arranged
in 27 lines per page, almost fully vocalised, with chapter headings highlighted in a bolder
script. The margins are ample and largely devoid of annotations, and the current page
measurements may reflect the original size of the folios. The binding, however, is not
original, and was probably added in Yemen in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The
text box of each page is lightly scored in dry point to its left and right. Catchwords are
only sparsely used, and they appear to have been added by a later hand.
Some folios within the Sanaa Aġānī present clearly visible zigzag marks, namely
scratches running from the upper to the lower inner margin of the page, traced with a
pointed tool during the paper production process, after the sheet was lifted off the
mould.
2
It is believed that such marks were employed on particularly thick paper sheets
to make the gutter area of the quires thinner and more foldable, and therefore minimise
the difference between the thickness of the fore edge and the spine of the text block.
3
In fact, the zigzag marks of the Sanaa Aġānī run very close to the folds of the bifolia. In
2
On zigzag marks see A. Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts: a Vademecum for Readers, 2009, p. 297.
3
J.-L. Estève, “Le zigzag dans les papiers arabes. Essai d’explication”, 2001, pp. 40–49.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 88
other manuscripts, however, the zigzag marks are not always found near the folds, and
some specialists have suggested that they may simply represent some sort of workshop
trademark.
4
Zigzag marks commonly appear in manuscripts copied between the twelfth and
the fourteenth century in al-Andalus, but also in some North African cities that plugged
into Andalusī scribal practices, such as Ceuta.
5
Palaeographically, the Sanaa Aġānī can
be attributed to the second half of the twelfth century and compared with another un-
dated but roughly contemporary codex in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF,
ms. Arabe 3298), containing the sixth volume of the same work.
6
The script is an elegant
and poised bookhand, featuring a number of mannered traits that include the perfectly
oval body of ṣād and ḍād; the stretched horizontal strokes of final bāʾ, tāʾ, and ṯāʾ; the
semicircular bowls of final and isolated nūn, lām, yāʾ and alif maqṣūra; the elongated
and flattened body of initial and medial kāf; the long and neatly curled tail of final mīm.
Although lacking the final folio(s) with the original colophon [Ill. 3], the Sanaa
Aġānī has miraculously preserved its title page. Just like in the BnF Aġānī, the title of
work is followed by a table of contents, here arranged in two parallel columns. In the
empty margins around it, and at the top of the page above the title, several ownership
notes (some of which erased and illegible) yield important information about the man-
uscript’s history [Ill. 1].
4
M.-T. Le Léannec-Bavavéas, “Zigzag et filigranes sont-ils incompatibles ? Enquête dans les manuscrits
de la Bibliothèque nationale de France”, 1999, pp. 124–125.
5
U. Bongianino, The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West. Maghribī Round Scripts and the Andalusī
Identity, 2022, p. 192.
6
On Maġribī round scripts in the twelfth century, see U. Bongianino, The Manuscript Tradition of the Is-
lamic West, 2022, pp. 171–294. The BnF Aġānī can be consulted online at https://archivesetmanu-
scrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc31195t.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 89
Ill. 2. Ms. Sanaa, Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, the third vol. of the Kitāb al-aġānī, the encyclopaedic collection
of poems and songs attributed to Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (284/897–356/967), incipit.
Ill. 3. Ms. Sanaa, Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, the third vol. of the Kitāb al-aġānī, the encyclopaedic collection
of poems and songs attributed to Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (284/897–356/967), end of the manuscript.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 90
III. Ownership marks
Above the title of the Sanaa Aġānī, written in a slightly faded brown ink, we can read
the words li-Yaḥyā ibn sayyidinā amīr al-muʾminīn ibn sayyidinā amīr al-muʾminīn ʿafā
Allāh ʿanhu wa-ġafara lahu, “for Yaḥyā, son of our lord the commander of the faithful,
son of our lord the commander of the faithful, may God forgive and pardon him” [Ill. 1].
Since amīr al-muʾminīn was the title used in the twelfth century by the Almohad caliphs,
this note indicates that the book belonged at some point to an Almohad prince (sayyid)
named Yaḥyā, a son of the second Almohad caliph Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf (r. 558/1163–
580/1185). This owner can be identified with Abū Zakariyāʾ Yaḥyā, who was governor of
Béjaïa in the early 1190s.
7
Immediately below is a line of poetry: Irġab ilā al-raḥm‹ā›ni yā
man raʾā/ḫaṭṭiya an yaʿfuwa ʿan kātibih (“O you who see my calligraphy, beseech the Mer-
ciful/that he may forgive him who penned it”). Both texts—the ownership note of the
Almohad prince, and the poetic verse—were written by the same hand in Maġribī ṯuluṯ,
a calligraphic style that imitates the Arabic scripts of the eastern Mediterranean.
8
The
exact same style and line of poetry was used by a warrāq and scholar from Córdoba,
Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Qaysī (513/1119–582/1186), on the title pages of several manuscripts
that he copied or collated for the Almohad prince Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. ʿAbd Allāh
b. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin (d. 604/1207), the first cousin of Abū Zakariyāʾ Yaḥyā.
9
Aḥmad al-
Qaysī seems to have worked for some time as personal librarian to Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulay-
mān, possibly in Murcia and elsewhere, and to have used this line of poetry as his per-
sonal signature.
10
We also know that Aḥmad al-Qaysī moved from al-Andalus to Marra-
kesh in the second part of his life, and that he died and was buried in the Almohad cap-
ital. The Sanaa Aġānī suggests that he also worked for at least another Almohad prince,
Abū Zakariyāʾ Yaḥyā, whose name he inscribed on the manuscript’s title page. Interest-
ingly, the BnF Aġānī also belonged to an Almohad prince, as can be deduced from a note
on its title page reading … ibn amīr al-muʾminīn ibn amīr al-muʾminīn ibn amīr al-
7
A. Huici Miranda, Historia política del Imperio Almohade, 1956–1957, vol. 2, p. 627.
8
On Maġribī ṯuluṯ see U. Bongianino, The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West, 2022, pp. 251–255.
9
On Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Qaysī see the online database PUA (Prosopografía de los ulemas de al-Andalus),
id. 2101, at https://www.eea.csic.es/pua/. On his activity as copyist and calligrapher, see U. Bongianino,
The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West, 2022, pp. 206–208. The most complete biography of Abū al-
Rabīʿ Sulaymān can be found in the introduction to the edition of his poems: Dīwān Abī al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān
ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Muwaḥḥid, 1969, pp. 4–14. Although Abū al-Rabīʿ is best known as governor of Tlemcen
and Siǧilmasa towards the end of his life, a later source mentions that he had previously been appointed
governor of Seville, Murcia, and Córdoba. Averroes dedicated to Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān his commentary
on the Urǧūza fī al-ṭibb by Ibn Sīnā: see L. Benjelloun-Laroui, Les bibliothèques au Maroc, 1990, p. 29.
10
Other manuscripts bearing the same line of poetry on their title pages are in Istanbul, Süleymaniye
Library, Köprülü collection, mss Fazıl Ahmet Paşa 347 and 349 (a multi-volume copy of Al-tamhīd li-mā fī
al-Muwaṭṭaʾ by Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr al-Namarī al-Qurṭubī); Rabat, National Library of the
Kingdom of Morocco, ms. 586 J (a copy of Muslim’s Ṣaḥīḥ); and a copy of the Mašyaḫa of ʿAbd Allāh b.
Wahb al-Qurašī currently held in a private collection in Rabat.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 91
muʾminīn …, traced in large Maġribī ṯuluṯ.
11
In this case, the owner was a son of the third
Almohad caliph, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Manṣūr (r. 580/1185–595/1198).
Between the title and the table of contents of the Sanaa Aġānī are two more own-
ership statements written in Maġribī ṯuluṯ [Ill. 1]. The first reads: ṯumma li-ʿAbd Allāh ibn
al-sayyid Abī al-Ḥasan ibn sayyidinā Abī Ḥafṣ ibn sayyidinā … This note indicates that, at
some point in the first half of the thirteenth century, the manuscript passed from the
library of Abū Zakariyāʾ Yaḥyā to that of his younger relative ʿAbd Allāh, another Almo-
had prince whose grandfather had been the powerful emir Abū Ḥafṣ, brother of the sec-
ond caliph Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf. It is likely that, by this time, the manuscript was in Marra-
kesh, the only major city that the Almohads were able to keep under their direct control
during the final decades of their rule. The second ownership statement reads: ṯumma li-
ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yūnus ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hintātī. This
unknown figure belonged to the Hintāta Berber confederation of the High Atlas, known
for their military support of the Almohad movement. The Hintāta remained close allies
to the Almohad caliphs until the end of the dynasty in 668/1269, and during the follow-
ing three centuries they exerted considerable power on the region of Marrakesh.
12
It is
therefore possible, if not probable, that the Sanaa Aġānī remained in Marrakesh
throughout the thirteenth century and beyond.
11
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b11002792v/f4.item.
12
P. de Cenival, “Les émirs des Hintāta, « rois » de Marrakech”, 1937, pp. 245–257. This ownership mark
refers no doubt to one of the awlād Yūnus, the branch of the Hintāta clan that, after the fall of the Almo-
hads, pledged allegiance to the Marinid sultans.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 92
Ill. 4. Ms. Sanaa, Dār al-maḫṭūṭāt, the third vol. of the Kitāb al-aġānī, the encyclopaedic collection
of poems and songs attributed to Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (284/897–356/967), Yemeni ownership marks.
On the second fly-leaf before the title page are three additional notes, most likely
added in Yem en [Ill. 4]. The lowest one is also the most legible: in it, a Yemeni hand
recorded that Qāsim b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad bought the manuscript in ṣafar 1261/1845, under
the legal supervision of a faqīh and two witnesses. The two other notes above it are ear-
lier. The upper one is dated muḥarram 1166/1753, and it mentions a certain Aḥmad b.
ʿAlī b. … al-Tihāmī. The middle note mentions the subsequent owner of the book,
namely his son ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Tihāmī. The first ownership note confirms
the presence of the manuscript in Ye men in the first half of the nineteenth century,
while the second note indicates that it belonged to individuals of the same family from
the Tihāma, along the Red Sea coast, as early as the first half of the eighteenth century.
On the basis of published catalogues of libraries in and outside Yemen, other
manuscripts containing the Kitāb al-aġānī seem to have circulated in Yemen. In the
Caprotti collection of the Ambrosiana Library, Milan, extracts from the Aġānī are pre-
served in ff. 21b–50a of an undated safīna containing an anthology of poetry, measuring
12 × 17 cm.
13
Safīnas are a kind of maǧmūʿ and book format well-attested in Yemen,
14
but
13
O. Löfgren & R. Traini, Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 1981, vol. 2, cat. 374.ii, C 118,
pp. 178–179.
14
J. Dufour & A. Regourd, “Les safinas yéménites”, 2020.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 93
for some reason, this safīna was described by Oscar Löfgren & Renato Traini as written
by a “Persian hand”. Other manuscripts indicate that the Kitāb al-aġānī was known and
copied in Yemen. Several examples are preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, e.g.
Ms. Landberg 370, datable to circa 600/1203 (non vidi, according to the catalogue),
Ms. Glaser 95 (circa 1100/1688); Ms. Glaser 246, (circa 1250/1834) or in Munich, Bayer-
ische Staatsbibliothek München, Ms. Glaser, Cod.arab. 1263 (1087/1676). This suggests a
sustained interest in al-Iṣfahānī’s work among Yemeni readers over the centuries, and
explains the presence of an early manuscript such as the Sanaa Al-aġānī among the
books belonging to successive members of a family from the Tihāma during the eight-
eenth-century
15
.
IV. Conclusion
The interest shown by the Almohad ruling élites in the Kitāb al-aġānī, as demonstrated
by both the Sanaa and the BnF manuscripts, was likely due to the prestige attached to
this fundamental work of adab in al-Andalus and the Maġrib. It is worth remembering
here that the Umayyad caliph al-Ḥakam II (r. 350/961–366/976) went to extraordinary
lengths to acquire a copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī directly from its author, and to have it
shipped to Córdoba from Iraq.
16
Two centuries later, the Almohads considered them-
selves heirs to the Umayyad caliphs of Córdoba, and they keenly emulated their literary
inclinations and patronage. A thorough examination of the Sanaa Aġānī codex will no
doubt yield significant palaeographic and codicological data that will improve our un-
derstanding of Andalusī and Maġribī manuscript culture during the twelfth century. For
the moment, it has been possible to connect one more manuscript to the activity of the
Cordovan scholar and warrāq Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Qaysī, and to the libraries of not one,
but two Almohad princes.
Bibliography
Manuscripts
Berlin, Glaser 95, ca. 1100/1688, Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-aġānī,
https://mymssportal.dl.uni-leipzig.de/receive/DE1Book_manuscript_00006509
Glaser 246, ca. 1250/1834, Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-aġānī,
https://mymssportal.dl.uni-leipzig.de/receive/DE1Book_manuscript_00005714
Landberg 370, ca. 600/1203, Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-aġānī,
https://mymssportal.dl.uni-leipzig.de/receive/DE1Book_manuscript_00007027
15
At least another book by Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī was known in Yemen, Aḫbār maqātil walad Abī Ṭālib,
but obviously for its religious, shʿi content, see the copy dated aḫar yawm raǧab 1055/19 September 1645,
extant in Sanaa in: A. ʿAbd al-R. al-Ruqayḥī, ʿAbd A. M. al-Ḥibšī & ʿA. W. al-Ānisī, Fihris maḫṭūtāt Maktabat
al-Ǧāmiʿ al-kabīr – Sanaa, 1404/1984, vol. 4, pp. 1731-1732, ms. n° 2154.
16
Al-Maqqarī (d. 1632). Nafḥ al-ṭīb min ġuṣn al-Andalus al-raṭīb, 1968, vol. 1, p. 386.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 94
Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, Köprülü collection, mss Fazıl Ahmet Paşa 347 and 349,
Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr al-Namarī al-Qurṭubī, Al-tamhīd li-mā fī al-
Muwaṭṭaʾ.
Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, ms. C 118, Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī, extracts from Kitāb al-
aġānī.
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Glaser’s coll., Cod.arab 1263, Abū al-
Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-aġānī,
https://mymssportal.dl.uni-leipzig.de/receive/DE12Book_manuscript_00000487
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), ms. Arabe 3298, Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī,
Kitāb al-aġānī, https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc31195t
Rabat, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, ms. 586 J, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
Rabat, private collection, ʿAbd Allāh b. Wahb al-Qurašī, Mašyaḫa.
Printed sources
Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān al-Muwaḥḥid (d. 1207), Dīwān Abī al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd
Allāh al-Muwaḥḥid, ed. Muḥammad al-Ṭanǧī et al., Rabat, Ǧāmiʿat Muḥammad al-
Ḫāmis, 1969.
Al-Maqqarī (d. 1632), Nafḥ al-ṭīb min ġuṣn al-Andalus al-raṭīb, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, Beirut,
Dār Ṣādir, 1968, 8 vols.
Catalogues & studies
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rose.
Bongianino, Umberto. 2022. The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West. Maghribī
Round Scripts and the Andalusī Identity, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
De Cenival, Pierre. 1937. “Les émirs des Hintāta, « rois » de Marrakech”, Hespéris 24/4,
pp. 245–257.
Dufour, Julien & Anne Regourd. 2020. “Les safinas yéménites”, in: Frédéric Bauden &
Élise Franssen (eds), In the Author’s Hand: Holographs and Authorial Manuscripts
in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition, Leiden, Brill, pp. 323–435.
Estève, Jean-Louis. 2001. “Le zigzag dans les papiers arabes. Essai d’explication”, Gazette
du livre médiéval 38, pp. 40–49.
Gacek, Adam. 2009. Arabic Manuscripts: a Vademecum for Readers, Leiden/Boston, Brill.
Huici Miranda, Ambrosio. 1956–1957. Historia política del Imperio Almohade, Tetuán, Ed-
itora Marroquí, 2 vols.
Le Léannec-Bavavéas, Marie-Thérèse. 1999. “Zigzag et filigranes sont-ils incompatibles ?
Enquête dans les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale de France”, in: Monique
Zerdoun Bat-Yehouda (ed.), Le papier au Moyen Âge : histoire et techniques,
Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 119–134.
Löfgren, Oscar & Renato Traini. 1981. Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
Vol. 2: Nuovo fondo: series A-D (Nos 1-830), Vicenza, Neri Poza.
U. Bongianino & A. Regourd An Almohad copy of the Kitāb al-aġānī in Sanaa
nCmY 16 (Janvier 2023) 95
Al-Ruqayḥī, Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Razzāq, ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibšī & ʿAlī Wahhāb al-
Ānisī. 1404/1984. Fihris maḫṭūtāt Maktabat al-Ǧāmiʿ al-kabīr – Sanaa, Sanaa, al-
Ǧumhūriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya, Wizārat al-awqāf wa-al-iršād, 4 vols.