Nisbas of the North: Muslims from Armenia, Caucasian Albania, and Azerbaijan in Arabic Biographical Dictionaries (4th-7th centuries AH)

Abstract

Recognizing that we know little about Arab settlement and Muslim populations in Armenia and Caucasian Albania during the Abbasid period, this article considers the data available in specific biographical compendia in Arabic: the works of al-Samʿānī, Ibn al-Aṯīr, Yāqūt, al-Ṣafadī, and Ibn Ḫallikān. It examines entries of notable Muslims from the fourth/eleventh through the seventh/fourteenth centuries with the nisbas related to the three provinces of the North. These tell of ethnic diversity, but also perceived geographical, scholarly, and ideological connectivity between the North and the more central lands of Islam and, specifically, the Persian cultural sphere. They engage themes and ideas that are key to the study of medieval Islam, such as ethnic diversity, slavery, the geographical definition of Islam, ǧihād, ṯuġūr, Sufism and asceticism, travel fī ṭalab al-ʿilm, and lines of transmission and authority.