Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq

For other people with this name, see Muhammad ibn Yusuf (disambiguation).

Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq
Personal life
Born	904 Guadalajara
Died	973 or 974 Córdoba
Era	Caliphate of Córdoba
Region	Al-Andalus
Main interest(s)	Islamic history, geography
Religious life
Religion	Islam

Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq (Arabic: محمد بن يوسف الورّاق) (* 904 in Guadalajara; † 973 or 974 in Córdoba) (in present-day Spain) was an Andalusían historian and geographer.^[1]

Life

He spent many years in Kairouan and returned to Cordoba during the reign of Caliph al-Hakam II.

Works

Al-Warrāq wrote for al-Hakam II a series of historical and geographical works on North Africa, none of which have survived whole, although many fragments of his extensive production are preserved in al-Bakri's Book of Roads and Kingdoms from one century later.^[2] From the extracts transcribed in al-Bakri's work relying on al-Warrāq, one can conclude that the latter was the first to mix geography and history. Any geographical subject is accompanied by its historical context and a detailed description.^[3] Ibn Hazm mentioned that his roots lay in the Berber tribal confederation of the Zenata.^[4]

Notes

1. About the geographer Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Warraq
2. Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history By J. F. P. Hopkins, Nehemia Levtzion; p. 62.
3. Science and Scholarship in al-Andalus
4. Corradini, Richard; Diesenberger, Maximilian; Reimitz, Helmut, eds. (2003). The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artefacts. Koninklijke Brill NV. ISBN 900-4-118-624. This was stated by Yusuf al-Warraq and he is [from the tribe of] Zenata.