Lineage of Scholars from the Ġarb al-Andalus (Beja, 9th-11th centuries)

Abstract

In Beja, between the mid-ninth century AD and the first decades of the 11th century AD, there existed a family line of scholars predominantly linked to the Maliki school of law (fiqh), the predominant school in al-Andalus.

We have the most complete information about this center of knowledge of Islamic law and of the Prophet traditions, and dissemination of teaching, through one of its participants, named Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Bājī, and his lineage of scholars and jurists who, for approximately two centuries, learned, traveled, taught, and held important legal and administrative positions in their city and region. Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Bājī wrote a text that, a few decades later, concerning individuals from the extreme Ġarb al-Andalus, was one of the sources used by Ibn al-Faraḍī in composing his treatise Tarīkh al ‘Ulamā’ al-Andalus (History of the Scholars of al-Andalus).

This study focuses on this lineage of learned men, on the original written source written by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Bājī, and on recent studies on them.