The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa Glaire D

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The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen (Eds), 2018, [Handbook of Oriental Studies / Handbuch der Orientalistik, Section 1: The Near and Middle East, volume 122], Leiden and Boston: Brill, xxxviii + 688 pp., 18 maps, 203 ill. b/w, 10 tables, €189.00/US$218.00 (hardback), ISBN 9-789004-355668

Kordula Wolf

To cite this article: Kordula Wolf (2019) The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, Al-Masāq, 31:3, 376-381, DOI: 10.1080/09503110.2019.1662605

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Perhaps Drayson’s most impressive contribution to this study is her analysis of the way in which memory has been preserved in fictional accounts that have proliferated down the cen- turies and in contrasting popular myth and the expressions of sorrow that have become part of a haunting splendour that is still tangible. And Drayson notes, the passionate grief expressed by the Andalusi poets following Boabdil’s exile attaches no blame to the young monarch himself. Nevertheless, perceptions such as his weakness and apparent incapacity were to emerge in some frontier ballads such as The Ballad of the Boy King, and this allowed erroneous confusion to have an impact on his reputation, which was perpetuated by sixteenth-century Spanish writers such as the Murcian novelist Ginés Pérez de Hita, who portrayed Boabdil as a vengeful and petulant tyrant. Nevertheless, his rehabilitation was to follow and Boabdil’s reputation as a reflective unifying figure was the subject of Dryden’s Conquest of Granada, and the quest to seek out a more flattering and authoritative reputation was pursued by Washing- ton Irving, convinced as he was that the sultan had been woefully misrepresented by Pérez de Hita and others. And the recognition that was to come from other European writers was even- tually reflected in the works of more recent writers and artists from within the Peninsula itself. Drayson has ensured that Boabdil’s legacy, though mixed, has been nudged towards a more positive appraisal. The conspicuous inaccuracies are small and, in terms of the subject, of little account, even if they include some curious insertions. For example, it is not clear why Drayson puzzlingly refers to Hernando de Baeza, Boabdil’s interpreter, as a Morisco author; and early in her book Charles Martel (c. 688–741) is wrongly identified as Charlemagne’s grandson. But the story is a great one, engagingly and wittily told and it has all the elements of high drama, intri- gue, passion, celebration and catastrophe. But this ultimate tragedy had within it elements of true virtue and bravery. For Drayson argues that the sacrifice of Boabdil in slipping quietly away into the Alpujarra Mountains would save the citizens of his beloved city from untold loss of life at the hands of the overwhelming Aragonese-Castilian royal house. While Boabdil enjoyed the idea and glamour of war, his poor leadership undermined his ability as a military strategist. Yet in terms of personal sacrifice he would remain a brave and humane figure – even if his family saw him as a weak and indecisive ruler.

The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen (Eds), 2018, [Handbook of Oriental Studies / Handbuch der Orientalistik, Section 1: The Near and Middle East, volume 122], Leiden and Boston: Brill, xxxviii + 688 pp., 18 maps, 203 ill. b/w, 10 tables, €189.00/US$218.00 (hardback), ISBN 9-789004-355668

Since their rule was commonly considered as peripheral in the Islamic West, the Aghlabid dynasty has received little attention over the past decades. An exception was the Tunisian historian and intellectual Mohamed Talbi (1921–2017), who in 1966 published L’émirat BOOK REVIEWS 377

Aghlabide (186–296/800–909): Histoire politique – a monograph that still constitutes a reference work for whoever deals with the ninth- and early tenth-century history of Ifrīqiya and the central Mediterranean. Now this work is accompanied by a comprehensive collection of contributions, dedicated to Talbi and originating from a conference held in London in 2014. Although it is necessarily selective, it impressively documents a renewed interest in early medieval Ifrīqiyan history and provides insights into the current state of research, with special attention to material culture, but less explicit attention to art, although the book title suggests this has an equal weighting. Taking up and going further than Talbi’s monograph, the 29 contributions aim at questioning the alleged peripherality of the Aghlabid reign and regions in Islamic (art) history by highlighting their interconnectedness in the Med- iterranean and far beyond. As the three editors underline in their introduction (chap. 1), North Africa had a key role in the medieval “world system”, because it linked the dār al-Islām with Sub-Saharan Africa, Byzantine dominions and Europe. Furthermore, they rightly point out that the Fātimids (r. 909–1171) cannot be understood without looking back at their ruling pre- decessors. Based on an interdisciplinary and transregional approach, the volume includes international expertise in history, archaeology and art history. It is structured into five major parts whose single chapters often differ substantially from each other. Perhaps a few more cross-references within the book would have given the reader easier access to links with related research topics and questions addressed in other chapters. So reading the introduction remains essential, for it contains important cross-connections and background information. In addition to the illustrations, tables and maps integrated in the individual texts, the Aghlabid timeline, the list of Aghlabid rulers, as well as the maps of the Islamic world in the ninth century, of the Islamic West, and of Aghlabid Ifrīqiya placed at the beginning of the book are also very helpful, as is the index at the end. In order to give an idea of the wide range of methods and content, the following will attempt to sum up some essential points, without trying to be encompassing. The first part, entitled “State-building”, brings to the fore the rule of the Aghlabids and their rise to independent power. Having no coherent focus on art or material culture, it forms a sort of loose historical framework for the following parts of the book. Hugh Kennedy (chap. 2) investigates the circumstances in which the Aghlabids came to power. Stating that the Caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 813–833) and his successors do not seem to have made much of an effort to restore their authority in Ifrīqiya, he sees the growing autonomy of the provincial governors against the back- drop of the inner collapse of the ʿAbbāsid Empire. The caliphate nevertheless represented an important – not only formal – point of reference. Involving different actors from their family’s client system and from the amīrate’s socio-political structures, the self-representation of the Aghlabids followed in many respects the ʿAbbāsid model, for instance regarding the foundation of “royal cities” such as al-Qayrawān and Raqqāda. In this way, they created an “African art” that, according to Mounira Chapoutot-Remadi, constituted “une véritable gram- maire des styles qui va dominer durant un certain temps le reste du Maghreb” (chap. 3, p. 75). The next chapter shifts the interest outside North Africa. Stating “not only that Sicily was at the heart of the Aghlabids’ political construction, but that it shaped their Mediterranean vision and their state”, Annliese Nef is convinced that – regardless of apparent difficulties when attempt- ing to establish control in eastern (still Byzantine) Sicily and in the Strait of Messina – the Ifrī- qiyan rulers would have been able to take over the island completely with their guerrilla and jihād strategy, if they had not consciously decided against it for mainly economic reasons (chap. 4, p. 77). In order to consider these statements, it would be exciting to compare the Agh- labid policies in Sicily with those in Malta, Sardinia, Corsica or the Italian mainland. The “topographies of power” especially in al-Qayrawān are the main concern of Caroline Good- son’s essay (chap. 5). Problematising the term “capital” usually applied to this city, she 378 BOOK REVIEWS highlights the fact that the ruling family’s residence and court was spatially separated from the urban centre. In the strict sense, therefore, al-Qayrawān cannot be characterised as the Agh- labid capital, but only as one major urban centre amongst others, which is why there was room for several alternative topographies of power. The next two contributions follow a numismatic approach: Abdelhamid Fenina (chap. 6) discusses the difficulty locating al-ʿAbbāsiyya, founded in 800 and mentioned as mint on many coins. He proposes to consider this location and al-Qasr al-qadīm (the centre of political power situated only a few kilometres from al- Qayrawān) as related to the same place, although with a different importance during the period of the ʿAbbāsid governors (wullāt) from the importance it held under the Aghlabids. Mohamed Ghodhbane deals, on the other hand, with the changing visual appearance of Agh- labid gold dinars during the crisis years under the rule of the last amīr Ziyādat Allāh III (r. 903– 916) – which would later influence for Fātimid coins (chap. 7). The first part of the book finishes with an interesting type of transfer between the ʿAbbāsid and the Aghlabid court, embodied in the figure of the famous singer Ziryāb, who resided and performed at the court of Ziyādat Allāh I (r. 817–838) for a certain time after his sojourn in Baghdad and before he moved to Córdoba. Dwight Reynolds (chap. 8) examines the earliest known references to this musician and provides glimpses into both his earlier carrier and the artistic life around the Aghlabid ruler. The second part is dedicated to monuments as “physical constructions of power” and concentrates on the Great Mosque of al-Qayrawān (chaps. 9–12), the al-Zaytūna Mosque in Tunis (chaps. 13–14), Kūfic monumental and funerary inscriptions (chap. 15), and the problem of identifying Aghlabid ribāts (chap. 16). Regarding the Great Mosque of al-Qayrawān, Faouzi Mahfoudh presents a diachronic history and identifies two important construction phases during the ninth century: one around 836 (mih rāb and semi-dome with painted stucco) and another in 862 (modification and decoration of the mih rāb and semi-dome). Jonathan M. Bloom discusses the provenance of the carved marble panels in the mih rāb, shows that the idea of Syrian Ummayad influence over western Islamic art and architecture has been over- stated, and suggests instead connections with pre-Islamic and contemporary al-Andalus. Nadège Picotin and Claire Déléry outline the difficulties concerning the reconstruction and restoration of the mosque’s minbar, while Khadija Hamdi presents first hypotheses and results of her analysis of the green and yellow tiles of the qibla wall. The al-Zaytūna Mosque, a very well preserved example of early Islamic architecture in the Maghreb, whose reconstruction was completed in 864, follows the same ideal planimetric forms as the Great Mosque. Abdelaziz Daoulatli concentrates on its mid-ninth-century elements and assumes that once its mih rāb was richly decorated, similarly to that of the earlier sister-mosque in al-Qayrawān. In a detailed comparison of the two mosques, Sihem Lamine emphasises that al-Zaytūna was not just a small-scale copy of al-Qayrawān founded around the same period and structurally changed in staggered phases, but a construction patronised by an ʿAbbāsid mawlā, and hence used as a counterweight to al-Qayrawān and the Aghlabid amīr and his court, and later by an Ismāʿīlī-Shīʿa (probably Zīrīd) figure backed by the Fātimids, which also led to stylistic innovation. Furthermore, the author emphasises not only that the Bāb al-Bāhu of the al-Zaytūna is the only surviving example of ceremonial Fātimid Ifrīqiyan art today, but also that the complex early history of the mosque “offers an opportunity to re- read mainstream medieval history” (p. 293). The chapter written by Lotfi Abdeljaouad then focuses on the characteristics of Kūfic inscriptions dated to Aghabid times, before the second part of the book closes with Ahmed El Bahi’s analysis of the ribāts. He deconstructs the assumption that the Aghabid period was a “golden age of ribāts” as a later projection, underlines the great difficulties in relation to a clear definition of an “Aghlabid ribāt”, and gives a new interpretation of the fortified littoral landscape in so far as the few Ifrīqiyan BOOK REVIEWS 379 ribāts of the Aghlabid period had defensive functions and only gradually became institutiona- lised. In any case, these ribāts do not fit much into our general model, and neither does the murābits’ community. Part three of the volume pays particular attention to “Ceramics: Morphology and Mobi- lity”, primarily in relation to the Aghlabid residence of Raqqāda, founded in 876 (chap. 17), to Palermo as seat of Aghlabid power in Sicily (chaps. 18 and 19), to the mosque al- Qarawiyyīn of Fez (chap. 20), and to al-Andalus (chap. 21). All five contributions deal with questions of dating and manufacture, forms, technics, decoration and possible provenance. Soundes Gragueb Chatti’s analysis shows influences from the Islamic East on the Raqqāda pottery and thus confirms the assumption that the mobility of craftsmen from production centres of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate played an important role. Regarding Palermo, Fabiola Ardizzone (†), Elena Pezzini and Viva Sacco present details from their research on tableware, lamps, amphorae and cooking wares, emphasising the close ties between western Sicily and North Africa and suggesting a “common cultural language” based on the mobility of people, which continued during the Fātimid period. Considering the – for the most part local – ceramics, Lucia Arcifa and Alessandra Bagnera study the Palermitan findings in a Mediterranean context. In addition to the uninterrupted existence of earlier types, glazed wares, according to the authors, represent a new element reflecting the process of Islamisation, while painted tableware, missing in the Maghreb but occurring in other Islamic regions such as Spain and the Syrian-Jordanian region, may indicate wider relationships with the Islamic East. So far, little is known about ninth- and tenth-century Fez, where many Ifrīqiyan Arabs were in the service of the Idrīsids (788–974) and to where hundreds of families from al-Qayrawān had fled. Kaoutar El Baljani, Ahmed S. Ettahiri and Abdallah Fili’s analysis of ceramics, recently found at al-Qarawiyyīn during rescue excavations, points to an increasing regionalisation of production and at the same time a trend towards standardisation due to economic and personal entangle- ments. However, it remains conspicuous and open to interpretation that no Aghlabid influence can be proven in the ceramic finds. Nor can it be found in al-Andalus: despite direct connections in the field of architecture, Elena Salinas and Irene Montilla cannot prove any clear links between Aghlabid and Andalusian pottery production, probably because the Islamic East was the main reference in this sector. Part 4 of the book is entitled “Neighbors: North Africa and the Central Mediterranean in the Ninth Century” and opens with a chapter about Jerba. On the basis of archaeological survey data, Renata Holod and Tarek Kahlaoui gather information about the reconstructable settlement patterns for the period between the eighth and tenth century, suggesting, however, that the island remained completely outside the Aghlabids’ domain (chap. 22). Lorenzo M. Bondioli (chap. 23) turns our gaze to Bari, an Adriatic port city in southern Italy, and discusses the circumstances that led, from 840 onwards, to the establishment of Muslim control and later of a short-lived amīrate (863–871). In principle, the author does not seem to question the chronological table of the Muslim rulers handed down in cod. Cas. 175 (cf. a different chronology recently published by Marco Di Branco in his chapter “Strategie di penetrazione islamica in Italia meridionale. Il caso dell’Emirato di Bari”) and brings Bari into connection with struggles within the Aghlabid jund. All in all, he characterises the city as “a catalyst for conflict between the interests of Carolingians, East Romans, and Aghlabids”, while doubting that “the Apulian emirate can be taken as representative of Muslim expansion on the mainland” (p. 490). The following three contributions (chaps. 24–26) put Morocco at the centre. Patrice Cressier focusses on the amīrate of Nakūr. He presents a number of important details and underlines the close relationship with al-Andalus, but no source testifies to direct contact with the Aghlabids. Another neighbour in this broader sense of the word 380 BOOK REVIEWS were the Idrīsids. Elizabeth Fentress deepens our knowledge about the excavations in Volubi- lis/Walila, in particular of what has been recognised as IdrīsI’s headquarters and about attempts to locate the tomb of this ruler, before Chloé Capel gives insights into her recent studies about Sijilmāsa, a major hub situated in the northern part of the trans-Saharan trade route. Although no written sources hint at contacts between this town, ruled by the Mid- rārid dynasty, and the distant al-Qayrawān, archaeological findings seem to indicate that the construction of Sijilmāsa was a self-confident response to the foundation of the Aghlabid “royal city” al-ʿAbbāsiyya and that of al-ʿAliya, built by Idrīs II, in order to symbolically emphasise its own independence. At the eastern trans-Saharan route, there was situated Zuwīla (Zawīla), a well-known centre of the Fazzān oases in present-day south-western Libya. David Mattingly and Martin Sterry (chap. 27) present their excavation results, stressing that Zuwīla, already established in the pre-Islamic period, replaced the Garamantian capital of Old Jarma (and possibly also Qasr al-Sharraba) as main trading centres. This gradual shift, probably from the seventh century onwards, might have been related to the changing importance of trading routes due to new geopolitical conditions and networks in which the Aghla- bids were also involved. The short last part of the book is on “legacy” or more precisely on the Qurʾān. Cheryl Porter outlines new research on the materials and their probable provenance, as well as the appli- cation techniques used for the famous Blue Qurʾān whose manuscript still cannot be exactly dated and localised. It was probably made in tenth-century Tunisia and therefore not in an Aghlabid context (chap. 28). Finally, Jeremy Johns deals with the only known Qurʾān copy from Muslim Sicily. This copy, which is one of the few surviving illuminated musāh if from the early period, also dates later (982–983), but bears “a striking resemblance to those generally attributed to Aghlabid Kairouan” (p. 594). A vignette, whose text associates the shahāda with the statement that the Qurʾān is not created, indicates that the controversy about the “nature” of this central religious text must have spread to Sicily and allows the author, after an instructive overview of the development of Islamic law in Ifrīqiya, to assume that the patron of the Palermo copy “was proclaiming not only his adherence to the Maliki community, but also his opposition to any ruler of the ahl al-bidaʿ, whether Hanafi, Mutazilite, or Ismaili” (p. 610). These selected details can of course only provide a rudimentary insight into the great wealth of the volume, which covers an enormous range of sources, thematic aspects, geographical regions, approaches and research issues. Particularly noteworthy is the close cooperation with several colleagues from Tunisia and Morocco, because this is by no means a matter of course in English publications. The book will certainly contribute to making research results that were previously published only in Arabic or French more widely known in the Anglo-American scientific community. The editors and authors have definitely succeeded in going beyond centrist narratives of the ʿAbbāsid world by embedding the “long Aghlabid century” (p. 4) in the wider African and Mediterranean context, too. With regard to the main title of the volume, one may complain that the interpretation of “neighbour” sometimes goes very far, which makes this term conceptually rather inoperable. And in relation to the subtitle, one might wonder what some chapters have to do with “art and material culture in ninth-century North Africa”. But you can also turn these objections into positive points, in the sense that the volume has much more in store than it promises at first glance. Talbi, who unfortunately did not live to see the book printed, would have read it with great interest. In his place, other readers will take it in hand with great profit, those who are looking for inspi- ration for new ideas and research directions, and those who are interested in details about ongoing work in various fields and disciplines. BOOK REVIEWS 381

The Orthodox Church in the Arab World (700 –1700), Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger (Eds), 2014, DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 355 pp., US$35.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-87580-701-0

The publication of this anthology of sources marks a major step in a long-neglected field, a millennium of Orthodox Arabic Christianity in Islam. It is not only an up-to-date synthesis, completing the work of Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam,1 and the bibliographic encyclopedia led by David Thomas, Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History,2 but above all it makes it possible to learn about the direct contact of the texts and to teach our students this story. The breadth of existing documentation is a windfall for future editions, translations and commentary, increased by the digitisation of manuscripts, which has accelerated over the past decade, especially when they are not kept in libraries dedicated to study, and when they are exposed to destruction in war-torn countries of the Middle East. The academic network is gradually being structured to make room for these studies, in particular, the North American Society for Christian Arabic Studies, an informal association of researchers interested in Christian Arabic studies, especially with a philological approach. This book fully meets this vocation and introduces both the major authors and the essential themes of their work. The choice of extracts is particularly appropriate in revealing the originality of this written production. The Arab Orthodox had to respond to the intellectual and religious challenge of Islam and defend their own religion in the Arabic language. Nine recognised specialists were brought together to compose this book. Mark Swanson presents and publishes some excerpts from an “Apology for the Christian Faith”, the oldest Christian Arabic manuscript (c.800) kept at St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, of which Samir Khalil Samir and Swanson prepare the edition and the translation. John Lamor- eaux devotes a chapter to Theodore Abū Qurra (c.740–c.820), one of the first Christians to have written in Arabic and developed a defence of Christianity against Islam. He also publishes a chapter on hagiography and another on the historian Agapius of Manbij (Mah būb b. Qustantīn, after 942): there, he recalls that, although most Christian Arab writers remain largely ignored by non-specialists, Christian Arab historians are read (even since the seven- teenth century) whenever a translation is available. Krisztina Szilágyi publishes translated excerpts of the dispute of the monk Abraham of Tiberias (first half of the ninth century), an anonymous controversy that circulated widely among Arabic-speaking Christians affiliated with various churches. Samuel Noble first introduced Sulaymān al-Ghazzī, an eleventh-century Palestinian bishop and author of the first collection of Christian religious poetry in Arabic, then ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Fad l al-Antākī (mid-eleventh century), an important

1Sidney H. Griﬃth, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque : Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam [Jews, Christians and Muslims from the Ancieent to the Modern World] (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). 2Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, ed. David Thomas et al., volumes I– [ The History of Christian-Muslim Relations , volumes XI– ] (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009–). Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée

147 (1-2020) | 2020 Fragments palestiniens : pouvoir, territoire et société

ANDERSON, Glaire D, Corisande FENWICK, Mariam ROSSER-OWEN, and Sihem LAMINE. The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth- Century North Africa. , 2018., Leyde-Boston, Brill, Handbook of Oriental Studies, volume 122, 2018, 688 p

Cyrille Aillet

Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/13092 ISSN : 2105-2271

Éditeur Publications de l’Université de Provence

Édition imprimée Date de publication : 30 juin 2020 ISSN : 0997-1327

Référence électronique Cyrille Aillet, « ANDERSON, Glaire D, Corisande FENWICK, Mariam ROSSER-OWEN, and Sihem LAMINE. The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa. , 2018., Leyde-Boston, Brill, Handbook of Oriental Studies, volume 122, 2018, 688 p », Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée [En ligne], 147 (1-2020) | juin 2020, mis en ligne le 14 novembre 2019, consulté le 19 novembre 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/13092

Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 19 novembre 2019.

Les contenus de la Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée sont mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale - Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International. ANDERSON, Glaire D, Corisande FENWICK, Mariam ROSSER-OWEN, and Sihem LAMINE. ... 1

ANDERSON, Glaire D, Corisande FENWICK, Mariam ROSSER-OWEN, and Sihem LAMINE. The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa. , 2018., Leyde-Boston, Brill, Handbook of Oriental Studies, volume 122, 2018, 688 p

Cyrille Aillet

1 Cet épais volume, très soigneusement édité, contient bien plus que les actes du colloque organisé sur ce thème à Londres en 2014. Complété par d’autres contributions, il forme un ensemble de 28 articles auxquels ont contribué 39 chercheurs, historiens, historiens de l’art et archéologues des deux bords de la Méditerranée. Pour l’essentiel, il s’agit d’une monographie de référence sur les Aghlabides, plus d’un demi-siècle après la parution de la thèse du grand historien tunisien Mohamed Talbi (1921-2017), auquel est dédié l’ouvrage. L’intérêt porté au contexte dans lequel évoluent les Aghlabides amène toutefois les éditrices à élargir la perspective à l’histoire des pouvoirs islamiques voisins, qui dominaient la Méditerranée centrale au IXe siècle. Il s’agit donc d’un ensemble cohérent, uni par une enquête sur la construction du pouvoir à partir des sources textuelles aussi bien que matérielles. Une chronologie du règne des émirs de Kairouan, un ensemble de cartes, une bibliographie finale et un index complet viennent compléter cette somme. Faute de contributeurs, il ne manque dans ce panorama qu’un article sur l’imamat ibadite des Rustamides de Tāhart, avec lequel les Aghlabides entretenaient des rapports étroits. Une contribution sur la dynastie contemporaine des

Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 147 (1-2020) | 2020 ANDERSON, Glaire D, Corisande FENWICK, Mariam ROSSER-OWEN, and Sihem LAMINE. ... 2

Ṭūlūnides (868 et 905) aurait pu également éclairer ce contexte « transrégional », d’autant que les liens avec l’Égypte étaient intenses.

2 L’introduction, écrite par les trois éditrices, résume bien les enjeux de cette entreprise. Il s’agit de redonner à l’Ifrīqiya toute sa place dans l’économie générale du monde islamique au IXe siècle et de rompre ainsi avec l’idée encore prédominante qu’elle ne constituerait qu’une périphérie « orientalisée », réceptacle passif de l’influence abbasside. Les Aghlabides sont à l’origine d’une « nouvelle dynamique impériale en Méditerranée occidentale », selon les mots d’Annliese Nef. Cette dynamique s’est traduite par une stratégie de conquête en Sicile et par la prise de contrôle de l’espace maritime. Elle a pris la forme d’une ambitieuse politique de constructions qui a donné naissance aux villes-palais d’al-ʻAbbāsiyya (800) et de Raqqāda (876), aux Grandes mosquées urbaines dont celle de Kairouan constitue l’exemple le plus monumental, à la défense et à l’aménagement des villes principales et à l’édification d’un réseau de ribāṭ-s côtiers. Enfin, elle s’est aussi déclinée sous la forme de productions artisanales de luxe, adossées à une économie florissante, qui ont fait de Kairouan et de l’émirat un pôle d’influence économique et artistique en Méditerranée. L’Ifrīqiyya, intermédiaire actif dans les échanges entre l’Afrique et la Méditerranée, espace charnière entre les deux rives et les deux bassins (occidental et oriental) du Mare nostrum, constituera non seulement le point de départ, mais aussi et surtout le fondement même de l’Empire fatimide qui renverse les Aghlabides en 909. 3 La première partie de ce parcours, qui regroupe sept contributions, interroge l’évolution et les caractéristiques de l’État aghlabide. Hugh Kennedy reconstitue le contexte troublé dans lequel se déroule la nomination d’Ibrāhīm b. al-Aghlab comme émir d’Ifrīqiyya par le calife Harūn al-Rashīd en l’an 800. Il insiste sur le coût économique exorbitant que représentait le maintien de l’autorité abbasside dans cette région par l’armée régulière, le jund, envoyée à plusieurs reprises pour faire face aux révoltes des populations locales, attisées par l’action des groupes dissidents regroupés sous l’étiquette de « kharijites ». Ces facteurs économiques permettent de comprendre le processus d’autonomisation des gouverneurs (wulāt) envoyés par Bagdad, en particulier la mainmise des Muhallabides (c. 771-794) qui, grâce à leur puissant lignage, pouvaient contribuer à cet effort financier. Leur renversement par le jund laisse place aux Aghlabides, un lignage arabe bien plus modeste qui avait fait ses armes dans le Khurasān avant de participer à la conquête de l’Ifrīqiya et d’y gouverner le Zāb. La guerre civile entre al-Amīn et son frère al-Ma’mūn entre 809 et 813 permit ensuite aux émirs de consolider leur autonomie. Mounira Chapoutot-Remadi brosse ensuite le portrait de la société aghlabide en reprenant, à peine nuancée, l’interprétation nationaliste de Mohamed Talbi, qui voyait dans les luttes entre les Aghlabides et le jund une « guerre d’indépendance » et « l’éclosion d’une conscience nationale arabo- ifriqiyenne » (p. 57). Elle reprend ensuite l’analyse de Fathi Bahri sur les « hommes du pouvoir ». Annliese Nef réinterprète quant à elle la politique aghlabide à la lumière de la conquête de la Sicile, lancée en 827. Elle souligne le caractère central de cette entreprise dans la formation du projet méditerranéen des émirs de Kairouan et dans la légitimation de leur autorité par le djihad. À sa suite, Caroline Goodson récapitule ce que l’on sait de la topographie de Kairouan au IXe siècle, sans guère de nouveauté. On pénètre aussi au sein de la cour des émirs grâce à la mise au point de Dwight Reynolds sur le séjour du célèbre musicien Ziryāb à Kairouan, qu’il juge tout à fait crédible. L’apport le plus neuf de cette première partie réside cependant dans les deux articles

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consacrés à la numismatique. Abdelhamid Fenina s’attaque à la question ancienne de la ville-palais d’al-ʻAbbāsiyya, supposée avoir été fondée par Ibrāhīm b. Aghlab en 800, mais dont on ignore la localisation. Les sources littéraires rapportent l’existence d’autres villes homonymes en Ifrīqiya, antérieures ou postérieures à la supposée fondation aghlabide, et ce toponyme désigne par ailleurs un ou plusieurs atelier(s) de frappe monétaire dont l’existence est antérieure à l’an 800. L’enquête confronte données textuelles et matérielles. Il en ressort que les premières frappes de fulūs et de dirhams au nom d’al-ʻAbbāsiyya remontent à 148/765. La ville fondée par les gouverneurs abbassides se confond-elle avec celle des Aghlabides ? L’auteur avance l’hypothèse qu’il s’agirait du même lieu, fondé au VIIIe siècle et situé à trois milles de Kairouan. Il aurait en fait été réaménagé par le premier émir aghlabide qui y aurait installé son palais (Qaṣr al-abyaḍ), donnant à ses travaux l’aura d’une véritable fondation. L’ancien établissement, déclassé, aurait alors pris le nom de Qaṣr al-qadīm. La démonstration, très minutieuse, laisse seulement en suspens la question de l’établissement homonyme fondé près de Tāhart pour faire barrage aux Rustamides (p. 112). Dans l’article suivant, Mohamed Ghodhbane met en exergue la révolution stylistique qui, sous le règne du dernier émir Ziyādat Allāh III (903-909), transforme le monnayage aghlabide, jusque-là remarquablement conservateur. Menacé par la propagande fatimide, le régime engage un rapprochement avec le califat abbasside, dont témoigne aussi la monnaie, dans l’intention de se présenter comme un rempart du sunnisme. 4 La seconde partie est dédiée aux constructions aghlabides, en particulier la Grande mosquée de Kairouan, à laquelle est dédiée la moitié des huit articles. Faouzi Mahfoudh réexamine les étapes de construction et d’aménagement du célèbre édifice en confrontant le récit du géographe andalou al-Bakrī avec les données archéologiques récentes. Celles-ci se concentrent sur l’analyse du miḥrāb, dont on sait désormais qu’il n’est pas entièrement d’importation iraquienne. Les carreaux de céramique proviennent du domaine abbasside, mais les panneaux de marbre blanc sculpté ont été réalisés par un artisan basé à Kairouan mais sans doute d’origine andalouse, comme le révèle sa signature. Les travaux de restauration ont par ailleurs révélé, dans le cul-de- four du miḥrāb, un premier décor en stuc peint datant de 221/836. De cette première phase pourrait dater la coupole en pierre. Le cul-de-four fut ensuite recouvert par une coque en bois en 248/862, et à cette deuxième phase appartiendrait aussi le décor en marbre. Jonathan Bloom, qui se penche sur ce dernier, juge que non seulement la matière première a pu venir d’al-Andalus, mais que le style de la réalisation n’est pas sans parallèles avec l’art omeyyade de Cordoue. Puis l’attention se tourne vers le minbar en bois, dont Nadège Picotin et Claire Déléry documentent l’histoire muséale et la restauration à l’aide d’archives photographiques inédites datant de 1907. La contribution de Khadija Hamdi révèle la découverte en 2010 d’un panneau mural de carreaux non lustrés verts et jaunes, situé derrière le minbar et dont la datation exacte (aghlabide ou postérieure) reste encore en suspens. Le volume offre aussi de nouveaux travaux sur la Grande mosquée aghlabide de Tunis, la Zaytūna, terminée en 250/864. Abdelaziz Daoulatli synthétise l’information disponible et fait le point sur le miḥrāb aghlabide, remanié aux Xe, XIe et XVIIe siècles, mais dont les pièces d’origine sont comparées aux décors contemporains présents dans la mosquée. L’article de Sihem Lamine fait un peu double emploi avec le premier et porte surtout sur les travaux engagés par les Zīrīdes, vassaux des Fatimides, qui inaugurent la coupole de Bāb al- Bahū en 381/991. Deux articles de référence viennent clore cette deuxième partie. Lotfi

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Abdeljaouad propose une typologie très richement illustrée de l’épigraphie coufique monumentale et funéraire des Aghlabides, à partir d’un corpus de 160 inscriptions. Il démontre que les lapicides aghlabides se sont différenciés de leurs contemporains orientaux par l’usage d’un style coufique beaucoup moins ornemental et fleuri. Ahmed el-Bahi s’attaque au phénomène des ribāṭ-s qui ponctuaient les côtes de l’Ifrīqiya aghlabide. Initiés par les gouverneurs abbassides pour protéger le littoral des attaques extérieures, ils se développèrent surtout à l’initiative des milieux dévots et furent financés par de pieux fondateurs, et non principalement par les émirs. 5 Le cœur de l’ouvrage accorde une place méritée (cinq articles) à la céramique, source essentielle pour l’historien. Soundes Gragueb se penche sur la céramique de Raqqāda, résidence palatine occupée de 876 à 921. Elle en dresse une typologie et s’intéresse en particulier au mobilier céramique à fond jaune – le célèbre jaune de Raqqāda – et aux coupes à fond blanc, deux productions de luxe qui sont révélatrices de transferts esthétiques et technologiques en provenance du monde abbasside, iraquien et iranien. La céramique sert aussi de fossile directeur dans l’étude de Palerme sous les Aghlabides, illustrée par deux articles collectifs. Fabiola Ardizzone, Elena Pezzini et Viva Sacco tentent de synthétiser les données textuelles et archéologiques disponibles. Elles présentent en particulier les caractéristiques de la production céramique connue sous le nom de « jaune de Palerme » (giallo di Palermo), inspiré de celui de Raqqāda. Ce panorama est complété, avec d’inévitables répétitions, par Lucia Arcifa et Alessandra Bagnera, qui insèrent le mobilier céramique retrouvé en fouilles dans des réseaux d’échanges méditerranéens plus larges, au-delà de l’axe Sicile-Ifrīqiya. Les deux dernières contributions élargissent l’horizon. Il est question de la céramique idrisside et zénète des IXe-Xe siècles, issue des sondages effectués dans la Grande mosquée de Fès par Kaoutar El Baljani, Ahmed S. Ettahiri et Abdallah Fili. Dépourvue de toute influence aghlabide, elle semble confirmer l’existence d’une forme de rupture entre ces deux ensembles politiques – hypothèse qui demandera confirmation dans l’avenir. Enfin, Elena Salinas et Irene Montilla examinent les interactions culturelles entre les al- Andalus et les Aghlabides, principalement à la lumière de la céramique. La comparaison, qui mériterait d’être poursuivie dans le futur, ne dévoilent pas de relations très claires, mais plutôt l’assimilation des techniques de la céramique glaçurée orientale par des voies et selon des modes divergents. 6 La quatrième partie élargit le champ de la comparaison à d’autres territoires et États de la sphère aghlabide ou du Maghreb au IXe siècle. Renata Holod et Tarek Kahlaoui présentent un état des recherches inédit sur l’île de Djerba sous les Aghlabides, issu du Jerba Project, un programme tuniso-américain (1996-2000). Il est par exemple question de Qaṣr Ghardāya, une résidence fortifiée (dont le plan est dépourvu d’échelle comme d’explication) située sur la côte près du port antique de Meninx et qui aurait servi de refuge, à la fin du VIIIe siècle, au leader des Nukkār, une branche schismatique des Ibadites qui occupa ensuite la moitié de l’île. Le matériel céramique n’est pas décrit, les sites mentionnés ne sont pas analysés précisément et l’on est bien obligé de se contenter des cartes qui localisent les 98 sites censés dater de la période 700-1050. Les auteurs ne détectent aucune preuve tangible de la présence aghlabide, tout en soulignant l’investissement progressif de l’île par une population affiliée à l’ibadisme. Autre marge de l’émirat aghlabide, l’émirat semi-indépendant de Bari, dans les Pouilles, dont Lorenzo Bondioli resitue la fondation en 840, et qui survécut jusqu’en 871. Il souligne que ses émirs servaient les ducs de Bénévent comme mercenaires mais qu’ils

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entretenaient des relations orageuses avec les Aghlabides, allant jusqu’à faire appel au calife abbasside pour tenter de gagner leur indépendance. On revient ensuite au Maghreb, dont plusieurs études éclairent le morcellement politique. Patrice Cressier, qui y a dirigé une campagne de prospection en 1997, présente ce que l’on sait de Nakūr, la capitale de la petite dynastie rifaine des Ṣāliḥides (c. 709-1068). Ancré en pays berbère, inséré dans tout un réseau tribal local, cet émirat « à vocation maritime » était par ailleurs intimement lié aux Omeyyades de Cordoue. La capitale, protégée par deux murailles et dotée d’une mosquée en bois dont les fouilles ont confirmé l’existence, était apparemment d’une conception bien plus modeste que les cités ifrīqiyennes. La céramique retrouvée in situ traduit toutefois ses échanges avec al-Andalus et le Maghreb central. Elisabeth Fentress présente ensuite les derniers résultats des fouilles de Walīla, la Volubilis islamique du temps d’Idrīs I, qui y installa sa capitale en 778-779 après avoir scellé une alliance avec les Berbères Awraba. Dans le quartier islamique, les fouilles ont mis au jour un vaste ensemble de bâtiments articulés et organisés autour de deux grandes cours. La présence d’un hammam et le réemploi d’un élément décoratif de l’arc de Caracalla en forme de bouclier ornemental (shield) dénoteraient la fonction politique prestigieuse de ce complexe, interprété comme le quartier général du prince – une lecture qui paraît cependant discutable, faute de preuves supplémentaires. La tombe du premier Idrisside, dont la localisation initiale fait l’objet de débat, fait aussi de Walīla un lieu de la mémoire chérifienne du pays. Puis l’on descend avec Chloé Capel au sud du Maroc, à Sijilmāsa, siège d’un imamat kharijite d’affiliation soufrite, fondé en 757-758. Arguments à l’appui, l’auteur défend l’idée que le récit, par al-Bakrī, de la construction par l’imam al-Yaʻsa d’une muraille en 814-815 dénote non pas un agrandissement de la ville mais une véritable fondation, à distance de l’ancien établissement préislamique, dans la vallée du Tāfilālt. Placée dans la lignée des autres fondations urbaines prestigieuses, la cité fut alimentée par un canal dérivé de l’oued Zīz, long de 40 km. L’aménagement d’un tel ouvrage hydraulique témoigne des ambitions et des ressources du pouvoir midrāride, dans le contexte d’intense compétition et fragmentation politiques qui caractérise le Maghreb de cette époque. Autre cité du désert très impliquée dans le commerce transsaharien, Zuwīla, qui appartient au groupement d’oasis du Fezzan (désert libyen), a été elle aussi le siège d’une population dissidente d’obédience majoritairement ibadite. David Mattingly et Martin Sterry documentent l’histoire et l’archéologie de cet établissement entre le VIIe et le Xe siècle et montrent qu’il supplante alors les centres voisins de Jarma et de Qaṣr al-Sharrāba, affectés par la disparition du royaume des Garamantes. Une Grande mosquée, qui n’est malheureusement pas étudiée ici, y est construite au IXe siècle. La nouvelle importance de l’axe commercial nord-sud vers le lac Tchad, bien reflétée par les sources ibadites que les auteurs n’exploitent pas, peut aussi expliquer ce glissement vers l’est du centre de gravité du Fezzan. 7 Présente à travers l’ensemble du livre, la question du legs aghlabide est spécifiquement abordée dans la cinquième et dernière partie à travers deux études sur l’art du livre au Xe siècle. Cheryl Porter reconstitue, à partir d’analyses en laboratoire, les techniques de coloration du fameux Coran bleu, dont les spécialistes discutent encore la datation (IXe ou Xe siècle) et l’origine (Iran, Iraq, Kairouan ou al-Andalus). Jeremy Johns revient quant à lui sur le Coran de Palerme, daté de l’époque fatimide (372/982-983), richement illuminé et conservé de nos jours à Istanbul. Il s’arrête sur l’une des inscriptions du codex, qui rajoute à la profession de foi ordinaire l’affirmation du caractère incréé du Coran, « parole de Dieu ». Il examine alors la controverse sur la création du Coran dans

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l’émirat aghlabide, où les souverains s’étaient ralliés au dogme muʻtazilite, comme le montrent trois inscriptions monumentales des années 850-860. L’opinion contraire continua néanmoins à être défendue jusque sur des épitaphes funéraires, et cela jusqu’au triomphe final du credo malikite avec Saḥnūn. Les califes fatimides allaient toutefois reprendre la thèse du Coran créé. Le Coran de Palerme témoigne donc de l’extension de cette controverse à la Sicile. Le commanditaire de cet ouvrage somptueux proclame de cette manière, en pleine période de domination fatimide, son appartenance à l’école malikite. Pour compléter son enquête, l’auteur aurait pu mentionner la défense du dogme de la création du Coran par les théologiens ibadites, nombreux dans le domaine aghlabide. Un traité sur ce thème est justement attribué à l’imam rustamide de Tāhart Abū l-Yaqẓān (260-281/874-894). 8 Rassembler autant d’études de qualité sur le Maghreb au IXe siècle constituait une véritable prouesse et la consultation de The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors s’impose à toute personne intéressée par cette aire géographique et par l’histoire politique de l’Islam au temps des Abbassides.

AUTEUR

CYRILLE AILLET

Université Lumière Lyon 2, CIHAM-UMR 5648

Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 147 (1-2020) | 2020 Al-Masāq Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean

ISSN: 0950-3110 (Print) 1473-348X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/calm20

The Aghlabids and Their Neighbours: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa

Sarah Davis-Secord

To cite this article: Sarah Davis-Secord (2018) The Aghlabids and Their Neighbours: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, Al-Masāq, 30:3, 334-336, DOI: 10.1080/09503110.2018.1521587

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2018.1521587

Published online: 24 Sep 2018.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=calm20 334 BOOK REVIEWS des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome volumes. He has utilised the recovered archival evidence to delve beyond the surface level of prohibitions to investigate the implementation and employment of these in practice. The trade licences, issued by the popes in Avignon – here mainly those of John XXII and Clement VI – communicate little inherently and individually. Yet, taken together, Carr shows that they can yield quantitatively and qualitatively signiﬁcant details regarding both the practicalities of eastern Mediterranean trade in this era, and insights into the crusading agendas of both the popes and the merchant crusaders. Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean builds on scholarship of the later crusading period pioneered as such by Norman Housely. Its argument allows for the nuance that much other recent scholarship permits, in which the monolithic “Muslims” and “Christians” of traditional historiography and current popular culture are challenged. It is instead recognised that contemporaries interacted with each other variously, and that Christians could often be in alliance with some Muslims and in opposition to other Christians, and vice-versa. Carr does not discard religious motivations, as has traditionally been the tendency of economic – and even some Crusade – historians, sceptical of leaders and those ambitious for wealth. The author, rather, recognises that religion was one of many entwined motivations governing the behaviours and actions of the “merchant crusaders”. This book joins other recent publications by, for example, Stefan Stantchev, Georg Christ, and Cristian Caselli, which shift focus toward the sea and away (although never entirely) from terrestrial borders, political institutions, and social entities. This maritime focus leads the author, in conclusion, to posit the potential necessity for a reappraisal of the role of the maritime republics in the Crusades. The shift in papal policies and attitudes over time was partially enforced by the changing character and increasingly mercantile agendas of those on “crusade”. Papal, Genoese, and Venetian intentions were mutually diverse and interdependent; all were concerned with trade, government, and defence of the faith. The text is complemented with useful maps, thorough appendices incorporating the details of some of these licences, along with reproductions of the contents of indulgences and correspondence. By complicating cross-cultural and inter-religious trading permissions and prohibitions as well as asking what came after 1291, this eloquently written, accessible, and well-argued monograph makes an innovative contribution from a fresh perspective to the study of the pre-modern Mediterranean.

The Aghlabids and Their Neighbours: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick and Mariam Rosser-Owen (eds.), 2017, [Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section One, The Near and Middle East, volume 122], Leiden and Boston: Brill, xxxviii + 688 pp., ill., maps, €189.00/US $218.00 (hardback), ISBN 9789004355668

This collection of twenty-nine essays is an important contribution to the growing bibliography on the Mediterranean and African worlds in the early Middle Ages, specifically focused on the material culture of the Aghlabids and their relationships with their neighbours. Too often left AL-MASĀQ 335 out of general narratives or mentioned only in passing – both by scholars focused on the central Islamic lands and by those of the Mediterranean world – this volume shows that the Aghlabids were in fact major players in many early medieval worlds, not only intersecting with the Mediterranean and the central Islamic lands, but also much of the continent of Africa. Interactions, borrowings and adaptations, trade and processes of Islamisation are all highlighted in the volume’s essays. Significantly, the volume’s editors also ask readers to consider the Aghlabids not only in relationship to their neighbours but on their own terms, as rulers who controlled an expansive North African territory, along with the islands of Malta and Sicily, and fostered a thriving intellectual and artistic culture and economy. Bringing together scholars from Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and North Africa and based on a 2014 conference held at University College London in cooperation with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the volume breaks ground by being a truly international collection and one that integrates a variety of disciplinary approaches, from archaeology and art history to musicology, numismatics, epigraphy, manuscript studies and text-based history. Seventeen of the contributions are in English and twelve are in French, reflecting the important presence of North African scholars and the valuing of their unique perspectives gained by access to sites that many Anglophone scholars do not have. After a thorough introduction to the historiography of the field and to the layout of the volume by the editors, the first essay, by Hugh Kennedy, discusses how the Aghlabids came to power as initially agents of the Abbasids and how they took advantage of local conditions to establish independent rule. After this follow seven more essays in the “State-building” section, each of which takes a different approach to the question – as the title of the piece by Mounira Chapoutot-Remadi asks – how did the Aghlabids govern Ifrīqīya? Answers in this section include pacification of revolts by Berbers and the jund, employment of enslaved workers and attention to vestiture based on the ‘Abbāsid model (Chapoutot-Remadi); military expansionism against Byzantium via Sicily – in part using raids to fund the jund and in part legitimising Aghlabid rule through an active Mediterranean policy (Nef); the foundation of cities and the building and restoration of monumental buildings (both Goodson and Fenina); skilful deployment of urban amenities to gain the allegiance of various urban factions (Goodson); development of monetary styles (Ghodhbane); and artistic patronage at the emir’s court (Reynolds). Themes threading through the first section include the constant problem of military revolts that the emirs dealt with (often unsuccessfully); the multiethnicity and multi- factionality of the Ifrīqīyan population; and the various influences and connections, both historical and contemporary, that came to bear upon the Aghlabid emirate – and how all these factors influenced the methods of rule and the ways the Aghlabids sought to secure and main- tain their power. The rest of the volume takes up several of these themes as it turns to specific studies of Agh- labid material culture. Part two concerns “Monuments: The Physical Construction of Power”. Eight essays consider both the best-known building, the Great Mosque of Kairouan (Mah- foudh, Bloom, Picotin and Déléry, Hamdi) and the lesser-known Zaytuna Mosque in Tunis (Daoulatli, Lamine), as well as monumental public epigraphy (Abdeljaouad) and the line of coastal fortresses (El Bahi). The many-layered history of these buildings and inscriptions illu- minates the ways that the Aghlabids both adapted pre-existing buildings and relied upon regional artisans, such as those from al-Andalus, to create distinctive local architectural and ornamental styles that continued to be representative of Ifrīqīya even after the fall of the Agh- labid emirate. Placing these buildings within both their regional and historical contexts shows just how concerned the Aghlabids were to establish their independent identity and authority through both emulation and innovation, and how many of their distinctive local styles were taken up by their successors. 336 BOOK REVIEWS

Part three addresses “Ceramics: Morphology and Mobility” in five essays. Building upon the theme of regional connections, several of the contributions look at the importation of artisans and techniques from the Islamic East (Gragueb Chatti), the export of products, techniques and artisans to Sicily (Ardizzone, Pezzini and Sacco, Arcifa and Bagnera) as well as the debt to late antique models found in both Ifrīqīyan and Sicilian pottery styles. The final two essays in this section look westward toward the Maghrib (El Baljani, Ettahiri and Fili) and al-Andalus (Salinas and Montilla) – both places for which ceramics do not provide strong evidence of direct connections with Ifrīqīya, which is more clearly seen from the architectural record. Part four widens the picture again to focus on “Neighbours: North Africa and the Central Mediterranean in the Ninth Century”. Six essays demonstrate how material evidence can help to delineate the wider boundaries of Aghlabid influence in western Africa. Some locations – such as Jerba (Holod and Kahlaoui), Bari (Bondioli) and Sijilmassa (Capel) – show signs of independence or distance from Aghlabid authority while still in conversation with them, while others – the Maghribian cities of Nakur (Cressier) and Walila (Fentress) – positioned themselves more as rivals to the Aghlabids, whether for sectarian or political reasons. None- theless, as the study of Zuwila (Mattingly and Sterry) shows, trade connections across the Sahara and more broadly gave the Aghlabids an interest even where they had no direct control. The final section, “Legacy”, serves as an epilogue, with two essays on tenth-century Qur’ānic manuscripts: the Blue Quran (Porter) and the Palermo Quran (Johns). Both demonstrate the continued vitality of Ifrīqīyan trade links, artistic techniques and religious debates even after the fall of the Aghlabids to the Fatimids in 297/909. This volume is not a comprehensive narrative of the Aghlabid emirate and its relationships with its neighbours, and presumably even more can and will be written on this important topic. Indeed, one hopes that this collection will spur and enlighten future study of the Aghlabids and their region. This collection, as a statement on the state of the field as well as what remains to be discovered, will be a vital resource and a first stop for anyone undertaking future study of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth-century regions of the western Mediterranean and northern Africa.

Treasure Trove of Beneﬁts and Variety at the Table: A Fourteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook [English Translation with an Introduction and Glossary], Nawal Nasrallah, 2018, [Islamic History and Civilization, volume 148], Leiden and Boston: Brill, xix + 704 pp., ill., €149.00/USD $172.00 (hardback), ISBN 9789004347298

Nawal Nasrallah is an authority on culinary history in the Arab world, and this book brings the same high quality and interesting content to the readers as her other recent publications in the ﬁeld. Carefully compiled using the 1993 edition of Manuela Marín and David Waines, as well as all relevant manuscripts and comparison points that help amend and clarify numerous issues, this new edition of the eighth/fourteenth-century Egyptian cookbook is an example of the interdisciplinary study of material culture that would be of use to a wide variety of readers. Reviews 207

Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, Mariam Rosser-Owen (eds.), The Aghlabids and their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1, The Near and Middle East, Band 122. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017, 688 pp., ISBN 978-90-04-35604-7

Reviewed by Antonia Bosanquet, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected] https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2019-0007

Over 50 years after its discussion as a thesis in 1966, Mohamed Talbi’s L’émirat aghlabid remains a definitive resource for studies of the history of the Aghlabid dynasty (800‒909). The Aghlabids and their Neighbors, a collection of articles compiled following a conference of the same name held in 2014, is dedicated to Talbi (d. 2017), and many of its entries interact explicitly with his research findings. Unlike Talbi’s reliance on texts, The Aghlabids and their Neighbors draws primarily on art and material culture as sources to reconstruct the history of this period. Both the quantity (29 essays) and the complexity of the contributions make a detailed discussion of the volume’s contents impossible, so this review will give a brief overview of the five sections into which it is divided before offer- ing more general comments on the work as a whole. The title of the first section, “Statebuilding”, is developed differently by the chapters that it covers. Hugh Kennedy’s contribution focuses on the development of the Aghlabid dynasty itself, and Mounira Chapoutit-Remadi’s chapter gives a broader overview of the evolution of the politico-social institutions that structured the Aghlabid state. The entries of Caroline Goodson and Abdelha- mid Fenina, on the urban architecture of Kairouan and the construction of the city of al-ʿAbbāsiyya, respectively, lend a more literal significance to the section’s title, whilst Mohamed Ghodhbane’s article on the coin typology under Ziyādat Allāh III (906‒909) relates more to state survival than building. Ghodh- bane interprets the unique change in coin typology under the last Aghlabid ruler 208 Reviews as a last-ditch attempt to counter Fāṭimid encroachment by invoking a closer relation with the ʿAbbāsid caliph in Baghdad. As history shows, the attempt failed. “Monuments: The Physical Construction of Power” is the title of the second section, which, together with the fifth section, will be of particular interest to art historians. However, the contributions’ focus on artisan mobility as reflected by materials and techniques of Aghlabid monuments make them essential reading for anyone interested in the movement of ideas and people throughout the Islamic world. The thematic weight of this section (four chapters) rests on the Great Mosque of Kairouan, understandably given its status as the epitome of Agh- labid monumental architecture, but perhaps at the cost of other equally interesting structures. Abdelaziz Daoulatli and Sihem Lamine have contributed good articles on the Zaytuna Mosque of Tunis, but the reader finds little more than a nod in the direction of the Great Mosques of Sousse and Sfax, or the Mosque of the Three Doors. Lotfi Abdeljaouad’s essay on Aghlabid epigraphy and Ahmed El-Bahi’s sensitive discussion of the Aghlabid (or not) ribāṭs are also welcome in this context, for their demonstration of the physical expressions of power outside state-controlled religious architecture. The entries of the third section focus on ceramics from across the region and are dominated by questions of influence, whether from the ʿAbbāsid east, Roman or Byzantine culture, or local Berber traditions, upon forms and production methods. Thus they relate well to the interest in artisan mobility of the pre- vious chapters. Soundes Gragueb Chatti’s study of the ceramics discovered in Raqqada emphasizes the similarities with forms from the eastern ʿAbbāsid Empire. By contrast, the contribution of Ahmed Ettahiri, Kaoutar El Baljani and Abdallah Fili, which presents some findings from the first scientific excavation of the prayer hall of Fez’s al-Qarawiyyin Mosque, finds little evidence of artisan communication with the Islamic east. The fourth section of the book is dedicated to the “neighbors” of the Agh- labid state. This term must be understood with some poetic licence for, as Patrice Cressier observes in his chapter on Nākūr, the Aghlabid emirate of Ifrīqiya and the Ṣāliḥid emirate of Nākūr never shared a geographical border, and no written documentation of any contact between them has been discovered. This does not detract from the relevance of Cressier’s entry; an understanding of the cluster of statelets and principalities in which Ifrīqiya was situated is central to appreci- ating its multiple roles as a somewhat vulnerable outpost of the ʿAbbāsid Empire, a shrewdly expansive Mediterranean power in its own right, an unavoidable con- junction of the trade routes of the region and a Sunni island within a sea of other forms of Islam. This section also highlights the geographical extent of Aghlabid rule and political cooperation. Lorenzo Bondioli’s article discusses the Muslim Reviews 209 polity based in Bari, bringing Aghlabid rule into conversation with Carolingian and Byzantine power struggles, whilst David Mattingly and Martin Sterry’s chapter on Zuwila highlights the relevance of the eastern Sahara for the economic well-being of the Aghlabids in Ifrīqiya. The fifth section, dedicated to the legacy of the Aghlabids, contains two chapters which both discuss a Qurʾān manuscript. Cheryl Porter’s entry, fascinating for both the methods and the findings that it outlines, examines the materiality of the Blue Qurʾān, whilst the codicological analysis of Jeremy Johns offers an engaging new interpretation of the religious and cultural context in which the Palermo Qurʾān (dated to 982‒983) was produced. The section is a fitting conclusion to the book and a timely reminder that Aghlabid influence in the region did not end with the arrival of the Fāṭimids. The Aghlabids and their Neighbors is a long overdue contribution to the study of Islam and North African history. The genuinely interdisciplinary approach offers numerous possibilities for further research, not least because of the relatively small number of primary texts for this region, and the difficulty of access- ing many of the manuscripts that do exist. The contributors must be praised for their skill in presenting complicated and specialized material in a manner that is both accessible and relevant to the non-initiate of their field. So too should the editors be commended for the volume’s internal consistency (no small feat in a collection of this size and range) and its coherent and helpful structure. Shortcomings, such as the relatively muted presence of contemporary Algeria where the Rustamid state was based, are unavoidable in a volume of this scope and probably reflect present political circumstances rather than an omission of the editors. The emphasis on a transregional approach is also welcome. As the editors’ introduction notes, “the work of scholars from many different regional traditions – North Africa, Europe, the UK [sic] and the USA” gives a sense of “the diversity and richness of research in these different contexts.” The observation is particularly apposite in the case of this volume, which contains a wealth of research that previously featured in national North Africa journals only and was frequently inaccessible to outside researchers. The introduction to The Aghlabids and their Neighbors states that one of its aims is to “highlight the region’s important interchange with other medieval societies in the Mediterranean and beyond” and to consider North Africa as “one of the vibrant centers of the medieval dār al-islām”. There is no doubt that the editors and contributors have succeeded in this respect, and the book excellently demonstrates the pivotal role that the region played in the economic, cultural and political development of the Islamic Realm. It is this insight, rather than an in-depth history of the Aghlabid dynasty in itself, that the reader will gain from this volume. As such, it is not a reiteration of Talbi’s aims and methods, but 210 Reviews a much-needed complementary approach to understanding the Aghlabids and their neighbors.