Al-Ghazal

Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā ibn Ḥakam al-Bakrī al-Jayyānī (c. 790–864), nicknamed al-Ghazāl ('the gazelle'), was an Andalusi Arab poet and diplomat. He undertook two important missions for the Emirate of Córdoba, the first to the Byzantine Empire in 840 and the second to the Vikings in 845. A native of Jaén, he received the nickname al-ghazāl in his youth because he was thin and handsome. He was a Muslim who belonged to the Arab tribe of Bakr ibn Wāʾil. The 11th-century historian Ibn Ḥayyān called him "the sage of Spain" (ḥakīm al-andalus), and the 13th-century writer Ibn Diḥya devoted more space to his diplomacy than his poetry in his Melodious Compilation from the Poetry of the People of the West. Ibn Diḥya is the only source for the Viking embassy, which he claims to have read about in a now lost work by al-Ghazāl's contemporary, Tammām ibn ʿAlḳama. In 839 or 840, the Emir ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II sent al-Ghazāl on a mission to the court of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos. This was a follow-up to Theophilos' own embassy to Córdoba seeking an alliance against the Abbasids. Bearing a response from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān to the letter of Theophilos, al-Ghazāl and his co-ambassador Yaḥyā (called ṣāḥib al-munayqila, the man with the little clock) accompanied the Byzantine ambassador back to Constantinople. There are numerous anecdotes concerning al-Ghazāl's embassy. Ibn Ḥayyān presents three accounts of the embassy. The first, based on al-Ghazāl's poetry and possibly on legends, is not entirely reliable. The future Michael III, an infant at the time, is portrayed as an adult. The purpose of this account is to amuse the reader. According to this account, when al-Ghazāl refused to perform the customary proskynesis, Theophilos had the doorway leading to his dais lowered so as to force the ambassador to enter on...