The Life and Times of Abu Tammam. Abu Bakr al-Suli

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      FOREWORD

      TERENCE CAVE

      “Rhymes and great deeds last forever

      like a string when fitted with a center pearl.” (§60)

      In 223/838, the armies of the Abbasid caliphate, led by the Caliph al-Muʿtaṣim himself, carried out a devastating retaliatory attack on the Byzantine Empire, laying siege to the key city of Amorium, sacking it, and slaughtering large numbers of its inhabitants. The victory, which marked a significant realignment in the balance of power between the Muslim and the Christian worlds in the East, was celebrated by Abū Tammām at the peak of his career in his most famous ode (for an abridged version, see §§61.2–3; also §§20.2–5). It was written down, copied, memorized, and widely read among the cultural elite, and brought Abū Tammām immediate financial rewards from the caliph as well as fame. Abū Bakr al-Ṣūlī’s compilation, The Life and Times of Abū Tammām, provides us with abundant insights into this and other similar episodes.

      At the other end of the Mediterranean, just sixty years earlier, another memorable battle was waged between Christians and Muslims. In 161/778, the rearguard of Charlemagne’s expeditionary force was ambushed and destroyed at Roncesvaux in the Pyrenees as they were returning northwards. What is now known as the Song of Roland, written down some 300 years later, represents this disaster as an episode in a long-term struggle between the Christian forces of Charlemagne and his Muslim adversaries. In fact, it seems that Charlemagne had done a deal with the Abbasid СКАЧАТЬ