''Kitāb al-bayān al-mughrib fī ākhbār mulūk al-andalus wa'l-maghrib'' (''Book of the Amazing Story of the History of the Kings of al-Andalus and Maghreb'') by Ibn Idhāri (var. Ibn Athari) of

Marrakech Marrakesh or Marrakech (; , ) is the fourth-largest city in Morocco. It is one of the four imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakesh–Safi Regions of Morocco, region. The city lies west of the foothills of the Atlas Mounta ...

in the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...

(now

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

); an important medieval Arabic history of the

and

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, compri ...

, written at

ca. 1312 / 712 AH . Generally known by its shorter title ''al-Bayān al-Mughrib'' (''The Amazing Story''; ), or even just as ''the Bayān'', it is valued by modern researchers as a unique source of information, and for its preservation of excerpts from lost works. Ibn Idhāri divides the work into three parts: *History of the

from the coming of Islam to the twelfth century *History of

Al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

(Muslim Iberia) over the same period *History of the Almoravids and

Almohad The Almohad Caliphate (; or or from ) or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa (the Maghreb). The Almohad ...

s The Arabic text of the first two parts was first published in a Latin edition by

Reinhart Dozy Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy (Leiden, Netherlands, 21 February 1820 – Leiden, 29 April 1883) was a Dutch scholar of French (Huguenot) origin, who was born in Leiden. He was an Orientalist scholar of Arabic language, history and literature. Biogr ...

(1848-52); a second corrected edition of these two parts was published in 1948 by Colin and Levi-Provençal. Several Spanish translations include a notable version by Ambrosio Huici Miranda, who originally published a part of the text as an anonymous work based on manuscripts from Madrid and Copenhagen and later the full text under Ibn Idhāri's name. A French translation by Fagnan (1901) based on Dozy's edition, received unfavourable reviews. However to date few translations of this work have been published. Portions of the incomplete and insect-damaged manuscript of the third part were discovered in the 20th century. Despite lacking the beginning and end and several folios,The various discoveries of Part 3 are detailed in Huici Miranda's introduction to the Spanish translation. the preserved MS fragments importantly provide for the correction of many of errors and information omitted by the more widely known '' Rawd al-Qirtas''. An Arabic edition published by Ihsan Abbas (Beirut, 1983) includes the incomplete Part 3.

Notes

References

*Spanish Translation of Parts 1 and 2: A. Huici Miranda, ''Colección de crónicas árabes de la Reconquista'' vols. 2 and 3, Tetuan, 1953-4. *Spanish Translation of Part 3: A. Huici Miranda, ''Al-Bayán al-Mugrib. Nuevos fragmentos almorávides y almohades''. Anubar Ediciones, Valencia, 1963. * N. Levtzion & J.F.P. Hopkins, ''Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history'', Cambridge University Press, 1981, (reprint: Markus Wiener, Princeton, 2000, ). English translation of extracts dealing with the Almoravids.
Comparative notes (in English) on sources of Moroccan history during the Almoravid period by French historian Lagadère
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayan 1312 books 1310s 14th century in Morocco History books about Algeria History books about Morocco History books about Spain History books about the Iberian Peninsula Iberian chronicles Literature of the Marinid Sultanate