“Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr y los anwāʾ: astronomía y religión en al-Andalus”,

Abstract

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (368/978-463/1071), one of the most outstanding Andalusi legal scholars of the 5th/11th century, includes a long chapter on anwāʾ in his Kitāb al-Tamhīd, a treatise about the ḥadīth contained in Mālik ibn Anas’ Muwaṭṭaʾ. This chapter is studied, together with related texts, in its two fundamental aspects. On a literary level, the chapter contains a kind of abbreviated anwāʾ treatise that constitutes one of the rare examples of Andalusian texts related to this genre in the Taifa era. On the religious level, the chapter expresses a debate on the legality of the anwāʾ centered on the hadith transmitted by Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān that condemns anwāʾ as a pre-Islamic belief. Due to its extensive and thorough treatment of the subject, this chapter of the Tamhīd is one of the documents that provides greater insight into the underlying problem of the anwāʾ system and derived literature: its legality, taking into account that it is based on a pagan belief. The debate acquires its full meaning when it is situated in a broader discussion, frequent in 5th/11th century-al-Andalus: the correct use of astronomy in a religious context, be it mathematical astronomy of Greek origin or popular Arabic astronomy linked to the anwāʾ, considering the opposition to astrology, generally rejected by legal scholars.