É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

SZOMBATHY, Zoltán: Some Notes on the Impact of the Shu übiyya on Arabic Genealogy

ZOLTÁN SZOMBATI IY should qualify him as an ardent shifübí, even if some of his rivals would fain show him in that light.

1

6 Moreover, one has to reckon with the well-known fact that one mediaeval scholar would borrow all sorts of data quite uninhibitedly and indiscriminately from the works of another, which, in the majority of cases, makes it next to impossible to decide who introduced a particular genealogical detail into the shared scholarly tradition, let alone deciding what his motives could be for introducing it. I believe it is always fraught with risk to guess at a scholar's motives for his making some claim or another, and especially so from a temporal distance of over a thousand years. Surely, indignant Arab noblemen in Abbasid times did tend to suspect foul political motives behind all the unfavourable data that genealogists might mention; whether we should trust their opinion is not quite so obvious. It could have been just the other way around: instead of deliberately seeking out shameful details about certain Arab aristocrats to buttress his pre-existent shuübi partiality, a scholar might just as well be branded a shu'übi precisely because of his having hurt the pride of some Arab noblemen by citing, or sometimes inventing, unwelcome genealogical details.

1 This being so, it is quite precarious to base the division between the shu'übiyya and its opponents on the occurrence of unflattering remarks and shameful data in any given scholar's oeuvre. 1

9 Just how uncertain such judgements are is indicated by Gibb's article in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (second ed.) on Abü cUbayda, in which he, in complete contradiction of Goldziher's findings, totally dissociates the mediaeval scholar from any pro-Persian tendencies. 1

7 Cf. the couplet of a Basran poet about the slight modification introduced by the offspring of Jubayr b. Hayya into their own genealogy: "Hayya lived as a female for a long time, then came to be a male ancestor: / How numerous are the wonders of these days; one would think we are ceaselessly dreaming! (Wa-känat Hayyatun unthä zamanan fa-särat ha'da dhälika jadda qawmi

; / la-qad kathurat a'äjibu l-layäli fa-khilnä annahu ahlämu nawmilf

. See Ihn Durayd, Ishtiqäq 307. Some scholars of genealogy, including Abü TJbayda, found similarly unflattering details in the descent of the Äl Näfb and Äl Abi Bakra lineages. See op. cit. 305-6. Cf. also Ibn HabTb, Munammaq 315-6. Furthermore, we are told that the noted genealogist al-Haytham b. cAdI grew extremely unpopular and became a focus of hatred because of his recording genealogical details that were thought to be better left unsaid: "

wa-käna l-Haytham yata'arradu li-ma'rifat usül al-näs wa-naql akhbärihim fa-awrada ma'äyibahum wa-azharahä wa-känat mastüra fa-kuriha lidhälika"

. See Ibn Khallikän, Wafayät VI, 106. In fact, al-Haytham seems to have been extraordinarily interested in the mathälib genre, being as he was the author of a Kitäb almathälib al-kabir, a Kitäb al-mathälib al-saghir, a Kitäb mathälib Rabba, and a book on the known prostitutes of the Quraysh tribe in pre-Islamic times and their descendants under the title Kitäb asmä' baghäyä Quraysh fi l-jähiliyya wa-asmä

' man waladna. It is easy to envisage the outrage this last tome must have caused in aristocratic circles. See Ibn al-Nadlm, Fihrist I, 99-100. In any case, it was generally accepted that any scholar who recorded uncomplimentary genealogical details did so out of hatred and envy towards the Arab aristocrats. Sec Ibn Qutayba, Fadl 35-36. 260