@article{TheScribeoftheAlhambra:Lisānal-Dīnibnal-Khaṭīb:1702,
      recid = {1702},
      author = {Ballan, Mohamad},
      title = {The Scribe of the Alhambra: Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb,  Sovereignty and History in Nasrid Granada},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2019-03},
      pages = {744},
      abstract = {This dissertation explores the relationship between  intellectual networks, royal patronage and developments in  political thought in late medieval Islamic Spain and North  Africa. It proposes a new reading of the history of the  Nasrid Kingdom of Granada (635/1238–897/1492) that examines  these broader issues by closely studying the life and works  of Lisān al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Khaṭīb (713/1313–776/1374),  the most prominent Spanish Muslim historian, chancellor and  philosopher during the 8th/14th century, situating this  figure within a larger network of scholars, statesmen and  functionaries in the late medieval Islamic West. This  dissertation illustrates the manner in which the crisis and  transformation that characterized the territorial  fragmentation of Islamic Spain and North Africa contributed  to the rise of a distinct class of scholar-officials who  reshaped the intellectual and political culture of the  Western Mediterranean. It argues that the gradual  concentration of executive political authority in the hands  of scholar-officials, such as Ibn al-Khaṭīb, was part of  the process of the consolidation of royal power at the  expense of the nobility during the late Middle Ages. For  their part, these scholar-officials composed works across a  variety of genres that sought to legitimate and rationalize  the centralization of royal authority. To examine this  phenomenon, this dissertation draws upon a corpus of  Arabic, Castilian and Aragonese manuscripts, as well as  coinage and epigraphy. It investigates the lives of those  individuals who existed in close proximity to royal power  during the late medieval period in order to explore how  their own experiences and ideas fashioned discourses about  sovereignty, governmentality and the craft of history  during the 14th century. 

The rise of a distinct class of  scholar-officials, whose members included Christians,  Muslims and Jews working for different (often competing)  dynasties, was underpinned by similar networks of  patronage, intellectual interests and a shared geography.  These highly-educated individuals rose to prominence as  chancellors, treasurers, and councilors within the royal  courts in Iberia and were responsible for producing a  multitude of works, while patronizing pieces of art and  architecture that embodied their particular worldview.  

Lisān al-Dīn b. al-Khaṭīb provides us with an  illustrative example of this class of individuals during  the 8th/14th century. This figure followed in the footsteps  of leading Spanish Muslim scholar-officials such as Abū  Bakr b. al-Khaṭṭāb, Ibn ‘Amīra, Ibn Sa‘īd and Ibn al-Abbār,  individuals who had exercised significant administrative  and political authority while also being deeply involved in  various intellectual and literary pursuits during the  7th/13th century. Ibn al-Khaṭīb authored over 50 works,  including historical chronicles, epistolography,  biographical dictionaries, poetry, medical texts, and  political treatises, throughout his career. This  dissertation illustrates his role at the intersection of  intellectual and political developments and demonstrates  how his literary production was closely intertwined with  his function as a statesman. It provides the first  comprehensive study in English of Ibn al-Khaṭīb’s life,  from his birth into a minor family in the small town of  Loja in 713/1313 to his rise as a physician and scribe in  the Nasrid court, his transformation from a client and  servant of the Nasrid dynasty into an itinerant  scholar-official who sought to establish his own individual  power and influence across the Islamic West, to his  controversial assassination in Fez in 776/1374. It looks  particularly closely at the letters that he exchanged with  his broader network of scholars, nobles, functionaries and  kings across the Mediterranean world to think about the  question of loyalty, ties of obligation and individual  strategies of survival in the Islamic West during this  period.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1702},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1702},
}