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The Manual de artillerìa of al-Ra'is Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad al-Andalusī with particular reference to its illustrations and their sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

David James
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Extract

The final expulsion of Moriscos from Spain in 1609 brought a new wave of Spanish Muslims to Tunis to join that substantial community of their fellow-countrymen which had increased steadily in number from the fall of Naṣid Granada onwards. Among these refugees and immigrants were some with considerable technical expertise: architects, military men, and skilled craftsmen whose arrival on Muslim territory caused a minor technological renaissance.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 237 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1978

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References

1 Flügel, , Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der kaiserlich-königliche Hofbibliothek zu Wien, IV, Wien, 1865, 447–80Google Scholar. This manuscript has exactly the same date a the manuscript in Algiers and seems to be a copy of the latter although the illustrations ai unfinished.

2 El, second ed., s.v. bärūd, section on the Maghrib by G. S. Colin. According to Enan, M. A.Nihāyat al-andalus, Cairo, 1966, p. 543Google Scholar, n. 1, there is another, evidently undated, copy in the Bibliothèqne Générale, Rabat. See also Enan, M. A., ‘Min turāth al-adab al-andalusī al-mūriskī’ Revista del Institute de Estudios Islámicos en Madrid, xvi, 1971, [Arabic section,] 11–19.Google Scholar

3 art. cit. above. Also Harvey, L. P., ‘The Morisco who was Muley Zaidan's Spanish inteipreter’, Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos, VIII, 1, 1959, 67–97Google Scholar. Also Turk, AbdelmajidDocuments sur le dernier exode des anadalous vers la Tunisie. Recueil d'études sur les morisco andalous en Tunisie, Madrid, 1973, 114–27.Google Scholar

4 Algiers, fol. 11 lv.

5 Harvey, , art. cit. 91.Google Scholar

6 Enan, , ‘Min turāth al-adab al-andalusī’, 16–18.Google Scholar

7 See the text of his biography.

8 I exclude the Latin words quoted in bāb 23 on the history of fire-arms.

9 See the Italian edition of Collado below.

10 Harvey, art. cit.

11 de Álaba y Viamont, D., El perfecto capitán, 1590.Google Scholar

Prado, D., Tratado original de artillería, manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, dated 1591.Google Scholar

de Isla, L., Breve tratado del arte de artilleria, Madrid, 1595.Google Scholar

de Céspedes, A. García, Tratado de artillería, Madrid, 1606.Google Scholar

de Rojas, C., Sumario de la milicia antigua y modernaGoogle Scholar, manuscript with illustrations dated 1607 in the Biblioteca de Mariátegui.

de Isabat, G., Tratado del ejercicio y arte de artitteríaGoogle Scholar, manuscript dated 1623 in the Academia de la Historia.

Firufino, J. C., Plática manual y breve compendia de artillería, Madrid, 1626.Google Scholar

el Bueno, A. Muñoz, Instrucción y regimiento para que los marineros sepan usar del artillería con la seguridad gue conviene, Málaga, 1627.Google Scholar

12 Lechuga, C., Discurso de la artillería, Milano, 1611.Google Scholar

13 Ufano, D., Tratado de artilleria, Bruselas, 1613.Google Scholar

14 Collado, L., Plática manual de artilleríaGoogle Scholar. This was first published in Venice as the Prattica manuale dell'artiglieria in 1586. There were further editions in 1606 and 1641 (Milan). The first Spanish edition appeared in Milan in 1592. See Dulcet, Palua y, Bibliografía hispánica, 57575Google Scholar. For Collado, see Almirante, , Bibliograf´a militar, 179.Google Scholar

15 The author tells us that he spent 30 years as a sailor, including 7 in captivity (Algiers MS, 9v) and 14 in the fortress of La Goulette (Algiers MS, 8r).

16 Collado, , capitulo xiiiGoogle Scholar, ‘Nota antes de travessar el palillo dicho, ya con el compas has de haver hallado en el medio punto justo y señaladolo con el cuchillo. Hecho esto toma un plomillo con sn hilo sobre la joya de la boca, y mudandolo con la mano à una parte y à la otra, hasta tanto que el hilo del plomillo empareje jnstamente con el señal del medio del palillo, y donde el hilo se reposa, sobre la joya de la pieça, alli serà el medio justo de ella’. For all quotations I have retained the original spelling and punctuation.

17 Ṣuwar al-kawākib, MS 1033, Vatican Library.

18 Sulwān al-muṭā', MS árabe 528, Eecorial Library. Probably illustrated by a Morisco of Granada trained as a painter who fled to Morocco in the mid-sixteenth century. See Arié, R., Miniatures hispano-musulmanes, Leiden, 1969.Google Scholar

19 ‘Materia medica’, MS arabe 2850, Bibliothèque Nationale; (Ibn Mu'ādh al-Jayyānī, Kitāb al-asrār fī natā'ij al-afkār, MS 152 Lanrentian Library (I would like to thank Dr. D. King of the American Research Center, Cairo, for drawing my attention to this manuscript, dated 644/1246).

20 Collado, 1592 edition.

21 Lechuga, 1611 edition.

22 Firufino, op. cit.: ‘Poco le aprovecharía al artillero saber nombrar una pieça con su propio y conocido nombre, si ignorase el reconocerla, que es tanto como decir, terciarla’ (lesson 5); Norton, Robert, The gunner, London, 1628, ch. xxiyGoogle Scholar, ‘To tertiate ordnance and finde what powder they can beare’.

23 The madfa' al-raqīq is described as follows: ‘The madfa' al-raqīq fires a ball of 30 raṭls or more. Its length is 17 to 18 calibres (quṭr). If it is used in action more than 12 times then it should be loaded with powder half the weight of the ball as its metal is thin (raq¯q) and will not tolerate more than that’ (bāb 23).

24 The ‘bed’ was the wooden base which supported the mortar.

25 This section is essentially a repeat of bāb 13: wa, qad taqaddama lanā al-qawl fī dhālik wa nu'iduhu hunā liannahu rukn qawī fī h¯dhihi al-ṣinā'a.

26 cf. bāb 13.

27 ‘Jacob's staff’ was an instrument consisting of a rod about 3 feet in length with a cursor, or cross-piece, which slipped on to one end. Also called the ‘cross-staff’.

28 Moore, Jonas, Treatise of artillery, London, 1683.Google Scholar

29 Chester Beatty MS 4107.

30 Harvey, , art. cit., 68Google Scholar, points out that this should be read mu'ajjam ‘known in the foreign tongue (i.e. Spanish)’, and not mi'dscham as in Flügel, op. cit., which is meaningless. The version of this word in the Chester Beatty copy, mu'jam, shows that the word was understood by later scribes to mean ‘known in the foreign tongue’.

31 Harvey suggests ‘Rivas’ or ‘Rives’, a quite acceptable Spanish name; art. cit., p. 68, n. 2.

32 Within the text there are frequent changes in the form of person used. The first person plural is also used where one would expect the first person singular. There are also several grammatical errors.

33 sulṭānī: see Dozy, , 674Google Scholar, ‘ ou seul, voyez Djoubarî 84v’.

34 For the Arabic word for ‘galley’, ghurāb, see Fahmy, A. M., Muslim seapower in the Eastern Mediterranean, London, 1950, 133.Google Scholar

35 Sp. ‘Agosto’.

36 Flügel, op. cit., gives a German translation of the biography in the Vienna MS, and Abdelmajid Turki, op. cit., a French translation of that in the MS in the Bibliothèque Nationals, Tunis. Neither of these translations has been collated with other copies and the Arabic text has not been published before now.

37 See n. 31, above.

38 In the Algiers and Tunis MSS this name is unvowelled. In the Chester Beatty copy the name is given as ‘Nawallash’. Flügel, op. cit., reads ‘Naulasch’ for this place but offers no suggestions as to its identification. Abdelmajid Turki, op. cit., suggests ‘Velez’ as a possibility. The name is mentioned in al-Khaṭīb, Ibn, al-Lamḥa al-badriyya, Cairo, 1347/1928Google Scholar with a slightly different spelling— According to Simonet, , Descripción del Reino de Granada sacada de los autores arábigos, Granada, 1873Google Scholar, is the village of Nigüelas in the Alpujarra between Dúrcal and Talara. (See Monés, Husain, Tārīkh al-jughrāfiyya wa '1-jughrāfiyyin fī 'l-Andalus, Institute de Estudios Islámicos, Madrid, 1967, 567.)Google Scholar Nigüelas was inhabited by Moriscos in the sixteenth century. See the document in Martinez, Juan Ruiz, Inveniarios de bienes moriscos del Reino de Granada (siglo xvi), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1972, pp. 286–7Google Scholar, document 60, Nigüelas del Valle de Lecrín, dated 1565. (To investigate the property of Sevastián Corrux of the above village.)

39 On fol. 8r of the Algiers MS the author tells us a little more about the circumstances which led him to compose his treatise. Every six months the artillerymen in the fortress were changed and a new squad consisting of eight men with a buluqbāshī (Ott. Turk. ‘captain’) and an uḍabāshī (Ott. Turk. , commander of an ‘oda’, a subdivision of a Janissary regiment, according to Redhouse, Lexicon, 255–6Google Scholar, s.v.). These men were totally unprepared and came without any of the equipment necessary. Nor did they show any interest in the art of gunnery. It was the experience of dealing with these men that made the author decide to compose his Manual.

40 In the Chester Beatty copies and those of Tunis and Vienna this place is written ‘Bazarush’. The Algiers copy shows that this must be a distortion of ‘Bin Arūsh’ written as two separate words. ‘Bin Arūsh’ is, of course, the port of Vinaroz which was in the old kingdom of Valencia. See Elliot, J. H., Revolt of the Catalans, Cambridge, 1963, map facing p. 1.Google Scholar

41 ‘A prisoner on board a Christian galley.’ As this was during the seven-year period of captivity endured by the author from 1611 to 1618, it indicates that he spent this period as a galley-slave.

42 The person referred to here is the Marqués de Villafranca, Don Pedro de Toledo, who at this time was on his way to replace the Marqués de Hinojosa as governor of Milan. The duration of Don Pedro's period of office was from 1615 to 1618; Dicc, de historia de España, Madrid, 1962, III, 781.Google Scholar

43 As this section indicates, reloading after firing could be very dangerous. Particles of burning powder adhered to the walls of the gun and when it was reloaded with the powder ladle the charge could ignite with the unfortunate results mentioned here. The solution was to clean out the gun with the sponge after each discharge.

44 See n. 40, above.

45 Lapeyre, H., Géographie de l'Espagne morisque (École Practique des Hautes Études. vie Section. Centre de Recherches Historiques. Oceanographie et Sociétés, II), Paris, 1969, 124–9.Google Scholar

46 It seems to me that this is the only possible interpretation of the words ‘forty-eight years before this date’. The fact that the author calls on the assistance of someone to translate the manuscript for him means that the biography was part of the original manuscript of 1632 It is difficult to accept that it could mean that the expulsion referred to was 48 years before that of 1671 since no expulsion edict was issued in that year, 1511 (Harvey, , art. cit., 68).Google Scholar For similar reasons it could not mean 48 years before the date of translation, i.e. 1590, although there was a census of Moriscos in the previous year (Lapeyre, , op. cit., 129).Google Scholar

47 Records of the sixteenth century indicate that particular emphasis was on the capture of Morisco captains, ‘arraezes’, who were never to be ransomed or released from slavery under any circumstances. See Guilmartin, J. F., Gunpowder and galleys, Cambridge, 1974, 120.Google Scholar

48 According to Abdelmajid Turki, an edition of the text is in preparation.

49 Harvey, , art. cit., Arabic text, 79.Google Scholar

50 For these see Harvey, art. cit.

51 Muḥammad Khoja ḅ. al-Ḥājj Aḥmad ḅ. Qāsim.

52 The details of the alterations are as follows.

Fig. 23. Landscape and clouds removed and the area inside the walls of the town reduced so that the buildings fill all the space.

24. Stones and shadows removed. 36. Landscape removed. 37. Landscape removed. 39. All human figures and landscape removed. 41. All human figures removed and tools arranged in a pattern on the ground. 45. Figures removed. 46. Figures removed. 47. Landscape removed. In some copies there are slight variations on the above, such as the combination of two scenes in one, e.g. Chester Beatty MS, Figs. 45–6.

53 Harvey, , art. cit., 91.Google Scholar

54 Harvey, , art. cit., 67.Google Scholar

55 We can assume that he was born some few years before the uprising of the Moriscos of Granada in December 1568, perhaps about 1560.

56 Figure painting was permitted in the case of the magnificent Sulwān al-muṭā' MS in the Escorial (see p. 242, n. 18) written in the mid-sixteenth century for a Moroccan officer. There is also evidence that foreign painters worked in North Africa. In 1593 Philip II sent Blas del Prado (1545–1600) to the court of the Sultan of Morocco, presumably Abū 'l-'Abbās Aḥmad (1578–1603), where he is reported to have painted, among other things, a greatly-admired portrait of the Sultan's daughter. He is also said to have stayed there long enough to acquire Moorish habits. In his Discursos practicables del noblísimo arte de pintura, finished in 1682, Jusepe Martinez alleges that Blas del Prado went to Africa twice and died there. Viñaza, Adiciones al diccionario historico … de Ceán Bermúdez, Madrid, 1894, supposes that the first visit occurred about 1580, before the painter's recorded activity at Toledo. See Post, , History of Spanish painting, XIV, Cambridge, Mass., 1966, 205–6.Google Scholar

57 Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my former colleague, Mr. G. Shapland, of the Department of Semitic Languages, and Dr. D. Cruikshank, of the Department of Spanish, University College, Dublin, for reading through parts of this article in draft form. A particular word of thanks must go to Mr. H. L. Blackmore of the Armouries of the Tower of London, whose advice has been invaluable. Naturally none of the above is responsible for any errors or omissions in these pages. I am also most grateful to the Director of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Algiers, Dr. Mahmoud Bou Eyad, for kindly putting at my disposal a microfilm and photocopies of MS 1511, and for permission to reproduce extracts and the illustration in plate I from the same manuscript.