So What Did Andalusis Learn from Ziryab?
In Scrutiny of his Role in Shaping Their Cuisine
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ppc.31194Keywords:
Ziryāb, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II, Cordova, Andalusi cuisine, Ibn Ḥayyān al-Qurṭubī, al-MuqtabasAbstract
Ninth-century Ali Abu Nafi, famously known as Ziryab, fled Baghdad and established himself as the most celebrated musician and arbiter of high style and sophisticated dining in the Cordovan courts of Muslim Spain. While this should not be surprising as he left when Abbasid gastronomy had already reached a high level of sophistication, the modern narratives of him extolling the role he played in revolutionising the dining experiences he had on al-Andalus and the rest of Europe ever after are exaggeratedly portrayed and even fallacious at times. The aim of the article, therefore, is to sift through some of the representative modern accounts of him – they are largely based on early modern translations of Arabic sources – and try to figure out how inaccuracies and misinformation could have crept in. A primary source is used in straightening the record. It is the account of Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi, the most detailed and the closest to Ziryab’s time but the latest to have been discovered. It is edited in Arabic only and has not been made use of regarding the role he played in shaping the Andalusi cuisine. That is in addition to what we know of it today through the two medieval Andalusi cookbooks that survived from the region.
References
Anonymous. 2024. Smorgasbords of Andalusi and Maghribi Dishes and their Salutary Benefits: English Translation of the Thirteenth-Century Cookbook Anwa' al-aydala fi alwan al-at'ima. Translated by Nawal Nasrallah. Leiden: Brill.
al-Antaki, Dawud. n.d. al-Tadhkira. Beirut: Mu'assasat al-A'lami li-l-Matbu'at.
Dozy, Reinhart. 1858. Analectes sur l’histoire et la littérature des Arabes d’Espagne, par al-Makkari, vol. 2. Leiden: Brill.
Dozy, Reihart. 1861. Histoire des musulmans d’Espagne jusqu’à la conquête de l’Andalousie par les Almoravides (711-1110), 4 vols. Leiden: Brill.
Garcia Gómez, Emilio. 1957. Historia de España, vol. iv. Spanish translation with an introduction of Lévi-Provençal’s Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A.
Gayangos, Pascual. 1843. The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain; Extracted from the Nafhu-t-Tib Min Ghosn-l-Adalusi-r-Rattib […] by Ahmed Ibn Mohammed al-Makkari, vol. 2. London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.
Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi. 2003. al-Sifr al-Thani min Kitab al-Muqtabas, edited by Mahmud 'Ali Makki. Riyadh: Markaz al-Malik Faysal li-l-Buhuth wa l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya.
Lebling, Robert. 2003. ‘Flight of the Blackbird’, Aramco World, July/August: 25–33.
Lebling, Robert. 2006. ‘Ziryab’ (pp. 390–2), in Culinary Biographies, edited by Alice Arndt. Houston: Yes Press.
Lévi-Provençal, É. 1953. Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane. vol. iii. Paris: G.P. Maisonneuve.
Lévi-Provençal, É. 1950. Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane. vol. i. Paris: G.P. Maisonneuve.
Makki, Mahmud 'Ali, ed. 2003. ‘Introduction’, in al-Sifr al-Thani min Kitab al-Muqtabas li-Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi. Riyadh: Markaz al-Malik Faysal li-l Buhuth wa l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya.
Miller, H.D. 2007. ‘The Pleasures of Consumption: The Birth of Medieval Islamic Cuisine’, in Food: The History of Taste, edited by Paul Freedman. Berkeley: University of California Press.
al-Nubahi, Abu al-Hasan. 1983. Tarikh qudat al-Andalus, edited by a committee. Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida.
Qurqut, Dhuqan. n.d. Hadarat al-'Arab fi-l-Andalus, Arabic translation of Lévi Provençal’s Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane. Beirut: Manshurat Dar Maktabat al-Hayat.
Reynolds, Dwight. 2008. ‘Al-Maqqari’s Ziryab: The Making of a Myth’. Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 11, no. 2, August.
Reynolds, Dwight. 2018. ‘Ziryab in the Aghlabid Court’, in The Aghlabids and their Neighbors, edited by Glaire Anderson et al. Leiden: Brill.
Salah al-Din al-Safadi. 2000. al-Wafi bi-l-wafayat. Edited by Ahmad al-Arna'ut and Turki Mustafa. 29 vols. Beirut: Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi.
Stokes, Francis Griffin. 1913. Spanish Islam: A History of the Moslems in Spain by Reinhart Dozy. London: Chatto and Windus.
al-Tujibi, Ibn Razin. 2021. Fidalat al-khiwan fi tayyibat al-ta'am wa-l-alwan, in Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib, translation by Nawal Nasrallah. Leiden: Brill.
al-Warraq, Ibn Sayyar. 2007. Kitab al-Tabikh, in Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens, translated by Nawal Nasrallah. Leiden: Brill.
