''Rawḍ al-Qirṭās'' ( ar, روض القرطاس) short for ''Kitāb al-ānīs al-muṭrib bi-rawḍ al-qirṭās fī ākhbār mulūk al-maghrab wa tārīkh madīnah Fās'' ('', The Entertaining Companion Book in the Gardens of Pages from the Chronicle of the Kings of the Maghreb and the History of the City of

Fes Fez or Fes (; ar, فاس, fās; zgh, ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, fizaz; french: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 mi ...

'') is a book that describes he rulers of the Maghreb, and a local history of the city of Fez. The work is usually known by its short title ''Rawd al-Qirtas'' meaning ''The Gardens of Pages''. It is said that this has a double meaning in that there was a public garden in

called The Garden of al-Qirtas, the latter name being a nickname of

Ziri ibn Atiyya Ziri ibn Atiyya (Berber language: Ziri en Ɛaṭiyya Ameɣraw) also known as Ziri ibn Atiyya ibn Abd Allah ibn Tabādalt ibn Muhammad ibn Khazar az-Zanātī al-Maghrāwī al-Khazarī (died 1001) was the tribal leader of the Berber people, Berber Ma ...

.See introduction by Huici Miranda to the Spanish translation In the days before printing, this popularity led to a large number of variant manuscripts. A consequence of this is some uncertainty about the author, who is given in some versions as Ibn Abi Zar of

, and by some as

Salih ibn Abd al-Halim Salih (; ar, صَالِحٌ, Ṣāliḥ, lit=Pious), also spelled Saleh (), is an Arab prophet mentioned in the Quran who prophesied to the tribe of Thamud in ancient Arabia, before the lifetime of Muhammad. The story of Salih is linked to the ...

Granada Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...

. The consensus of modern opinion is that the original author is Ibn Abi Zar as stated by

Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...

, and that Abd al-Halim is merely a summarizer at best. The double meaning of the title, the detailed history of

and numerous mistakes in the geography of

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

, are cited as evidence that the author was a native of

. The scope of the history is from the advent of Idris I in 788 to the

Marinid Dynasty The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) a ...

up to 1326. The work falls into four sections, each ending in a summary list of the events in each period: *The Idrisid and

Maghrawa The Maghrawa or Meghrawa ( ar, المغراويون) were a large Zenata Berber tribal confederation whose cradle and seat of power was the territory located on the Chlef in the north-western part of today's Algeria, bounded by the Ouarsenis to ...

kings *The

Almoravid The Almoravid dynasty ( ar, المرابطون, translit=Al-Murābiṭūn, lit=those from the ribats) was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that s ...

s *The Almohads *The Marinids Modern researchers consider that the first and last sections contain a valuable record of their respective periods, even if not completely free from errors. On the other hand, the sections on the

s and Almohads are considered to be riddled with chronological and factual errors and omissions and make this work one of the least trustworthy sources for those periods. In light of these issues it is unfortunate that

chose the work as one of his primary sources of reference. A critical version of the Arabic text, utilizing all the manuscript versions then available, was published by Tornberg in 1843, and this is generally used as a basis for modern Arabic versions. Tornberg also gave a Latin translation. A French translation was published in 1860 by Beaumier but is based on fewer manuscripts and is considered faulty by modern standards.e.g. ''Biyuna'' is translated as ''Bayonne'' but is actually ''Iruña'' i.e.

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

, as pointed out by Huici Miranda The second (1964) edition of Huici Miranda's Spanish translation is heavily annotated and is considered authoritative.

Notes

References

*French translation: A. Beaumier, ''Rawd al Kirtas. Histoire des Souverains du Maghreb et Annales de la Ville de Fes''. Editions La Porte, Rabat, 1999. *Spanish Translation: A. Huici Miranda, ''Rawd el-Qirtas''. 2nd edition, Anubar Ediciones, Valencia, 1964. Vol. 1 , vol. 2 . *English translation of sections on the

s: N. Levtzion & J.F.P. Hopkins, ''Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history'', Cambridge University Press, 1981, (reprint: Markus Wiener, Princeton, 2000, ).

External links

Maroc-Hebdo interview (in French) with Tayeb Habi, a recent publisher of Beamier's French translation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawd Al-Qirtas Medieval Morocco Medieval Algeria History books about Morocco 1320s books History books about Algeria History books about Spain 14th-century Arabic books Literature of the Marinid Sultanate