Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam

Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (born ca 800 - died 870 in Cairo) was an Egyptian Muslim chronicler who wrote the History of the Conquest of the lands of Egypt and North Africa and Spain.

His work is an almost invaluable source as arguably the earliest Arab account of the Islamic conquests of those countries. However, it was written some 200 years after the events it describes, and therefore largely mixes actual facts with later legends. Although its full original text is lost, it was often quoted by later Islamic historians and has survived through those scattered testimonies.

The author's father and brother Muhammad were the leading Egyptian authorities of their time (early 9th century) on Malikite Islamic law. Although much quoted, they are rarely mentionned by name because of a family disgrace. The historian and his brothers were accused of embezzlement of a deceased estate, imprisoned, and one of the brothers even died under torture.

Works

The Arab text of the work, reconstructed from the writtings of later Islamic historians, has been published in Cairo in 1918 by H.M. Premier-Fascicle, under the French title Le livre de la coquette de l'Égypte, du Magrab et de le Spagne. A short portion of the work covering only the Muslim conquest of Spain has been translated into English by John Harris Jones (Gottingen, W. Fr. Kaestner, 1858, pp. 18–22).

Sources

• "Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam". Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill Publishers. 
• L. Chargnon (2008). La conquête musulmane de l'Egypte (639-646). Paris: Economica.