Abū Yaḥyā ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥudhakī al-Fāriqī, better known as Ibn Nubāta (d. 984/5), was an

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic preacher () celebrated for his sermons, active at the court of the

Hamdanid The Hamdanid dynasty () was a Shia Muslim Arab dynasty that ruled modern day Northern Mesopotamia and Syria (890–1004). They descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib tribe of Mesopotamia and Arabia. History Origin The Hamdanids hailed ...

emir of Aleppo The monarchs of Aleppo reigned as kings, emirs and sultans of the city and its surrounding region since the later half of the 3rd millennium BC, starting with the kings of Armi, followed by the Amorite dynasty of Yamhad. Muslim rule of the city ...

Sayf al-Dawla ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū'l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn Ḥamdūn ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī (, 22 June 916 – 8 February 967), more commonly known simply by his honorific of Sayf al-Dawla (, ), was the founder of the Emirate of Aleppo, ...

Life

Ibn Nubata was born in Mayyafariqin to a family belonging to the Hadhabani tribe, but the date is not known. His medieval biographers assigned him a birth date of 946, but this is considered erroneous by modern historians. He was active at the court of the

, celebrated both as a warrior and patron of art and culture. The Aleppan court at the time attracted some of the most important intellectuals of the Arab world, and has been compared by modern historians with

Renaissance Italy The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...

. Ibn Nubata died in his home city in 984/5.

Works

His sermons were written in rhyming prose and, according to the historian

Marius Canard Marius Canard FBA (26 December 1888 – 13 September 1982) was a French Orientalist and historian. Biography He was born in a small village in the region of Morvan, where his father was a school teacher. Canard studied at the ''Collège Bonap ...

, followed a three-section pattern: "(1) praise of

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

and prayer for the

Prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

; (2) exhortation to fear God and the

Last Judgement The Last Judgment is a concept found across the Abrahamic religions and the '' Frashokereti'' of Zoroastrianism. Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, res ...

and to observe the moral and religious laws, in particular the obligation of the

jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...

; (3) petition for God's help and blessing, ending in a verse of the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

". Apart from his regular Friday sermons, Ibn Nubata also composed sermons for special occasions, notably the military campaigns of his patron,

, against the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. These 'sermons on the Holy War' () were among his most popular works, and are a historical source about the political events of his day. The 13th-century biographer

Ibn Khallikan Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān (; 22 September 1211 – 30 October 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a renowned Islamic historian of Kurdish origin who compiled the celebrated biographical encyclopedi ...

praised him as "a perfect master of all sciences connected with general literature", as well as a person of "divine grace" and "fine genius". His sermons were collected along with sermons of his son, Abu Tahir Muhammad, and his grandson, Abu'l-Faraj, in the 1220s. Various editions have survived, with the 1311

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

edition being the most famous.

References

Sources

* * * {{Authority control 984 deaths People from the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo Sermon writers People from Silvan, Turkey Sayf al-Dawla Islamic sermons