Al Ghazal, from Byzantium to the Viking country

Part I

By Jesús Cano. Arabist

By the mid-9th century travelling across the Mediterranean could be very dangerous, especially for an old man like al-Ghazal, who had earned a position in the Cordoban court good enough to be put out on such a hazardous endeavour.

As Ibn Hayyan tells in his al-Muqtabis II, when the emir of al-Andalus, Abd-er-Rahman II, chose Yahya ben Hakam al Bakri, known as al-Ghazal, to be sent to Constantinople as ambassador, “the poet found this painful and requested to be released from travelling”. The honours that such a mission might allegedly bring him, like the experience of knowing the court of Byzantium −something that would sbe unaffordable for a young man− looked to be rather a trap from the enemies of this wise old fox so experienced in palace intrigues. These, apparently, were not few in a court where it was quite usual to walk on the razor’s edge. Al-Ghazal himself composed these verses expressing his fears:

“Some say that al-Gazal is smart.

And, after being consulted, he was the one proposed.

That was not the reason, but that they considered me the easiest person to be dispensed with […]

I will go, yet those who are keen on hurting me

Will have to face the vagaries of fortune;

Hopefully my return will be fitting for God;

things do not depend on them”.

From these words, it can be deduced the (enormous) effort made by the aged poet to not abandon his privileged position next to the emir. He had employed much effort, almost all his life long, to get that far.

Despite it not being possible to say an accurate date for his birth between the years 770 and 773, we know that he came to the world on a farmstead in Jaen, which according to Ibn Hayyan was very popular. Little is known from his early years. He might had enjoyed a high social standing, enough to move to Cordoba, living nearby a vizier named al-Iskandari, where he starts flirting with power.

It is very apt to use the word “flirting” when he refers to Yahya Ibn al-Hakam al-Bakri nicknamed al-Ghazal, meaning the gazelle, according to Ibn Hayyan “because of his beauty, whereas others say that it was due to his fresh look, his beautiful figure and his graceful movements”, although it was maybe for all that.

But also, Ibn Hayyan says about him: “In addition to his brilliant education, he was a varied wise man, with a great abundance of knowledge, who was able to speak in frivolous attitude, humorous, profound, and playful giving news”.

We can think therefore that al-Ghazal enjoyed other appeals than his beauty.

Watercolour ©Belén Esturla Thanks to the kind collaboration of AramcoWorld magazine.

When we try to know something from his early years, it is noteworthy the scarcity of news on him before he was in his forties, the time when he started to enjoy great influence. During the rule of the first Andalusi emir, Abd-er-Rahman I, the migrant who escaped the massacre of his whole family in Damascus, al-Ghazal was too young; he was not that so during the short government of Hisham I, who, by the way, must not have had much of a sense of humor when he left the satirical poet Abu-I-Makhsi without eyes and tongue. We know little or nothing about his activities, poetic or otherwise, in the court of this emir; we know a little more about his relationship with Al-Hakam I, who has gone down history for filling with blood the surroundings of Cordoba en 818.

Al-Ghazal devoted several panegyrics to him, although it seems that this did not help him to obtain a privileged position, although to tell the truth, he was already included in the list of poets-astrologers. He finally triumphed in the court of Abd-er-Rahman II, and became his favourite poet, although, as we will see e had his ups and downs.

Silver dirham of ab-er-Rahman II of Cordoba ©CC BY-SA 3.0

Silver dirham of ab-er-Rahman II of Cordoba minted in the year230 of the Hegira.

His fame, as his life, were dimming in the times of the emir Muhammad I, who, according to his age, could be his great-grandson. What did he do in the early decades of his life as someone who evidently had the capacity to have triumphed before? Leaving aside the Arab chronicles, which used to exaggerate the traits of this personality, one might think that possessing beauty, good education, intelligence… everything needed, in brief, to have started shining when he was twenty, why he could not channel all that potential to obtain something more than a licentious lifestyle, jumping from one bed to another, like a sort of an Andalusi Don Juan? Maybe he tried it with no success during his first years, or maybe he only obtained his reward later with Abd-er-Rahman II. Perhaps he just considered for a long period that it was too risky to thrive in a court full of dangers, where someone like him could easily become the target of envy. Envy that he was dragged into years later, when in 832 arrived to the Cordoban court the unique Ziryab, to whom he devoted some verses so scathing that it cost him some time in exile in Iraq, curiously in the place where Ziryab came from.

Be it as it may, al-Gazal was one of those rare people who had both a natural beauty and a tongue of equally brilliance, a combination that helped him win many battles both in the court and in literary competitions, which turned against him much to his regret, when he was appointed Umayyad ambassador to the Basileus Theophilos Al-Ghazal tried to avoid the journey by all means, fearing not only for his own life but, above all, for the future of his family. Yet, hearing his complaints, Abd-er-Rahman assured him that this family would get enough income from that moment on to live peacefully while he was away. This did not really reassure Yahya, who, in an attempt to convince the emir, poured out all his talent before him by creating a great many verses, some of them truly brilliant, reporting his worth as a man of letters.

What they offer to me in exchange to be absent, I think that

Despite being much, is despicable

I see death taking away life from the elusive roe deers

And catch them, as if they were birds, although in flight.

Once he had ample proof that Abd-er-Rahman’s decision was irrevocable, al-Ghazal had no choice but to obey.

He departed one day of year 225 of the Hegira (839-40 of the Christian era) and took with him as his right another Yahya, named Munayqilah, together with the Byzantine ambassador, who had travelled to Cordoba on a secret mission, that as it turned out, was no so secret, as the chronicles have echoed the story: to seal an alliance between the Byzantine empire and the Andalusi Emirate to counter the pact that the Abbasid Caliphate and the Aghlabids of Tunis had just established.

There is no doubt that al-Ghazal was soon to discover that his fears of the danger he was facing were true. As soon as they boarded, on the coasts of the Kura of Tudmir (Murcia), the sea became so turbulent that the traveller feared for their lives. They were finally saved, but the impression was so strong that our poet-ambassador reluctantly wrote some improvised verses:

“Shrouded in the gusts of East and North,

Which ripped two sails from the eyelets of those halyards

And the angel of death rode straight ahead towards us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crónica de los emires al-HakamI y Abderrahman II entre los años 796 y 847 (Al Muqtabis II-I). Ibn Hayyan. Translation, notes and indexes by Mahmud Alí Maqqi and Federico Corrientes. Institute of Islamic Studies and the Near East. Zaragoza, 2001.
Encyclopédie de l’Islam. Article by Huici Miranda. Vol. II, P. 1062. Leiden-Paris, 1960.
Enciclopedia de al-Andalus. Junta de Andalucía. Fundación el Legado andalusí. Granada 2002.
Al-Gazal y la embajada hispanomusulmana a los vikingos en el siglo XI. Mariano G. Campo (ed.). Miraguano Ediciones. Madrid 2002. Contains articles by A. Hajji and D.W. Allen.
Un échange d’ambassades entre Cordue et Byznace au 15ème siécle. E. Lévi-Provençal. Bizantion, XII (1937), I-24.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. F. Engels. Marxist Internet Archive. 2000.