IAU PUBLISHING: Ibn Suheyd - Andalusian Poet and Writer (ePub)

In Andalusia, scientific and cultural activities increased when the political unity was obtained. There were remarkable progress in history, literature, law, philosophy, and religion. Particularly, Cordoba had become one of the most striking scientific centers of the world. In a period of retrogression in Europe, the studies in Andalusia had transported the advancements of Easts into the European mainland and took place in the course of enlightenment.

Science was the primary concern to establish the political stability in the period of conquest and settlement, studies on literature had failed. Nevertheless, administrators paid attention to science and literature, showed close interest to scientists and men of letters, and rewarded them when the political stability restored. This attitude had given rise to bringing up of several poets and literary men. On the other hand, some rulers had written poetry, even they chose some of their viziers and administrators out of poets and literary men. Therefore, Andalusia is of great importance in terms of poetry and literature.

Throughout the eight centuries -from the moment they arrived at Spain in the year 92/711 and until the last Muslim left in the year 892/1492Muslims had established a different sort of political and social environment which was neither identical to the place they were living at that time nor to the place they used to live. It is indisputable that the different religion, languages, ethnical components, and cultures had contributed a lot to the rise of such an atmosphere.

Even though Arabs started to expand their own culture into Spain with the conquest, they couldn't manage to expand their culture as successfully as their political expansion. However, after the conquest, in the following two centuries Andalusia had turned into a scientific center of its own peculiarity where any kind of scientific research was carried. Besides the top-level education in this scientific center, some important advancements had also been noted in relation with libraries and books. In the neighbourhood of Andalusia, various scholars rose in the fields of religion, philosophy, literature, poetry, philology, history, science, medicine, arts, etc.

Our concern Ibn Suheyd is also among the eminent personalities appeared in Andalusia with polished poetrical and literary skills. Ibn Suheyd, who has a significant role in Andalusian literature and poetry, is also of great importance for Arabic literature in general. Though he was under the influence of eastern literature and poetry, Ibn Suheyd, who developed his own literary style with the use of varied subjects in his writings, died in an early age but he made name for his writings.

Our project is composed of an introduction and three following parts. In the introduction part, we provided a brief history of Andalusia. In the first part, we wrote about science and literature in Andalusia. Thus, we could outline the scientific and literary circumstances of the time before Ibn Suheyd, and examine the atmosphere which he was born and bred in. In the second part, we handled the life of Ibn Suheyd beginning from his childhood. Here, we wrote about his family, the way he was brought up, his relationship with governmental administrators, and the governmental positions he was given. It is also in this part that we tried to familiarize the works of Ibn Suheyd in detail. In the third part, we attempted to display his literary personality. We represented his reputation in Arabic prose and verse with the help of some examples from his poetry and literary outputs. It is here again in this last part that we mentioned his evaluations on literature and history of literature.