Literature in Qurṭuba

Abstract

The history of literature in Islamic Cordoba covers a period of over five centuries, during three of which it was the capital of al-Andalus. This extended time frame fostered the emergence and development, based on imitation and assimilation of Eastern models, of a specifically Andalusi literature. Cordoba played a key role in the literature of al-Andalus, not only because it was a center of patronage established by a long succession of culture-loving and art-defending emirs and caliphs but also because of the large number of writers, poets, and scholars it produced, many of whom became leading figures of universal literature, such as Ibn Ḥazm, Ibn Zaydūn, or Ibn Quzmān. Several generations of authors thrived in this rich literary history—some of them not yet sufficiently studied and known—alongside new genres of crucial importance for European literary history, such as zajal and muwashshaḥa.