Medieval Lives 1: al-Ghazāl

Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World

This is a story about Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā ibn Ḥakam al-Bakrī al-Jayyānī, known also as al-Ghazāl (the Gazelle). It's the story of a 9th century poet on an embassy from the Emirate of Córdoba to a Viking ruler.

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Sources:

• Allen, W.E.D. "The Poet and the Spae-Wife: An Attempt to Reconstruct Al-Ghazal’s Embassy to the Vikings," Saga Book, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1960).
• Hermes, Nizar F. The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture: Ninth-Twelfth Century AD. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
• Pons-Sanchez, Sara M. "Whom did al-Ghazal meet? An Exchange of Embassies Between the Arabs From al-Andalus and the Vikings," Saga Book, Vol. 28 (2004).
• "A Hispano-Muslim Embassy to the Vikings in 845: An Account of al-Ghazal’s Journey to the North" at ballandalus.wordpress.com.

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