Hafs ibn Albar al-Qūṭī (), commonly known as al-Qūṭī or al-Qurṭubî, was a 9th–10th Century Visigothic Christian count, theologian, translator and poet, often memorialised as the 'Last of the Goths'. He was a descendant of Visigothic royalty and held a position of power over the Christians of his region. He was possibly a priest or censor,Pérez Marinas, Iván. Hafs ibn Albar al-Qûtî: el traductor mozárabe del Salterio. but many scholars take him to be a layman.Dunlop, D. M. “Ḥafṣ b. Albar: The Last of the Goths?” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 3/4, 1954, pp. 137–151. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25222720. He describes himself as ignorant of the sacred sciences, and constantly allowed his works to be checked and commented on by those he called "best in their religion and a bright light in the sacred sciences", claiming that "all of them know what I do not know".
He wrote in Arabic, which had then become a common language of Mozarabic Christians living in al-Andalus. Arabic was slow to be adopted by the Iberian Catholic Clergy because the Arabic language was enforced by the Islamic government and the Church wanted to appear completely separate from Islam. Hafs ibn Albar's work in translating the Psalms and other theological works has been characterised as integral to the preservation of the Iberian Church under Islam as it allowed Christians who had been raised in an Arabic culture to fully participate in the Christian faith.
Background
Towards the end of the Visigothic period of Iberian history, the Visigoths were ruled by a monarchy elected by the Church.David Abulafia et al. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 1 c. 500 – c. 700, This system had been stable for some time, but eventually the children of former kings became claimants to the throne and civil wars broke out. In 711, the Visigothic Kingdom, in the middle of one such civil war, fell to Islamic forces. During the invasion there were two Visigothic claimants: the main claimant Roderic ruled from the ancient capital of Toledo and he controlled South-West, whereas Achila II ruled Tarraconensis and Narbonensis in the North-East.Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Achila was succeeded by his younger brother Ardo in Narbonensis alone as Tarraconensis had been taken by Islamic forces.
The fate of the conquered Christians varied from case to case. Standard Dhimmi contracts usually gave Christians and Jews fewer rights than their Muslim counterparts.Balakian, Peter (2003). The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. New York: HarperCollins. . Nobles, such as Count Theodimir, often managed to negotiate treaties which allowed them to keep some of their status, land and wealth, along with the rights of their subjects.Collins, Roger (1989). The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–797. Oxford: Oxford University Press The children of King Wittiza, the penultimate Visigothic king before the Islamic invasion, negotiated treaties and retained great significance. Al-Maqqari and the Chronicle of Alfonso III refer to them as Romulus, Artabasdus and Olmundus.García Moreno, Luis A. "Prosopography, Nomenclature, and Royal Succession in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo." Journal of Late Antiquity, 1(1:2008), 142–56 Other chronicles and genealogies mention Evan and Sisebut in addition to the other sons of Wittiza.Cubitt, George. Granada: or, The Expulsion of the Moors from Spain.(London: John Mason, 1850) Romulus settled in Toledo and held extensive lands in the east of Spain. Some Scholars believe that the names Romulus and Artabasdus are corruptions of Achila and Ardo respectively. This would explain Romulus' holdings in the east of Spain.
In the centuries following the Islamic conquest of Spain, Romulus' descendants had significant power over the Mozarabs of al-Andalus due to the fact that the representatives of Christian communities, called counts, were required to be Christians themselves. Hafs ibn Albar was a descendant of RomulusJames, David. Early Islamic Spain: The History of Ibn Al-Qutiyah. Routledge, 2009. and the Count of the Christians of Toledo (although Ibn al-Qūṭiyya refers to him as the Judge or Qadi).Penelas, Mayte. A possible author of the arabic translation of Orosius’ Historiae. Brepols Publishers, 2001. Other Christian communities had counts, such as Flavius Athaulf of Coimbra, son of the aforementioned Prince Sisebut.Anonymous. Description genealogica y historical de la ilustre casa de Sousa. (1770) Abû Sa’îd al-Qûmis, a descendant of Artabasdus, was Count of the Christians of al-Andalus,AL-QÛTIYYA, I. B. N. "Tarij iftitâh al-Andalus (Historia de la Conquista de España), texto árabe impreso por P. de Gayangos en la Colección de Crónicas Árabes de la Real Academia de la Historia, T. II (Madrid 1868)." Una edición posterior: Historia de la conquista de España de Abenalcotia el Cordobés, trad. castellana de J. Ribera, Madrid (1926). possibly because he lived in Cordoba, the capital of al-Andalus. Abû Sa’îd held extensive estates in central al-Andalus.
Name
Hafs is usually remembered by his patronym 'ibn Albar', usually taken to refer to him being the son of Álvaro of Córdoba,Honorii, Cosmographia Iulii, and Chronica Muzarabica. "“How can I trust you, since you are a Christian and I am a Moor?” The multiple identities of the Chronicle of Pseudo-Isidore. although some claim that Hafs is more likely to be Álvaro's grandson or descendant. He is also remembered either as al-Qūṭī (the Goth) or al-Qurṭubî (the Cordoban). Some take al-Qurṭubî to be a toponym. Others believe that al-Qurṭubî is either a corruption of al-Qūṭī or a deliberate attempt to link him more closely with Álvaro. He is believed to have had been born with a full Latin or Gothic name, but this has been lost.Pérez Marinas, Iván. "The Mozarabic of Cordoba of the ninth century: Society, culture and thought." (2012).
In one manuscript he is referred to as ibn al-Quti (Son of the Goth). He appears in Judaeo-Spanish texts as Héféç al-Qouti. In Maghrebi texts he instead appears as Alfuti. This is because the letters: ق and ف (usually romanised as q and f respectively) are especially similar in the Maghrebi Arabic alphabet.Neubauer, Adolf "Hafs al-Qouti" Revue des Études Juives 30 (1895): 65-69. Such scribal errors at times confused details about his background. David Colville, the first person to translate the works of Hafs ibn Albar into English, believed that Hafs was Jewish. Adolf Neubauer refuted this based on the other works of Hafs, such as his pro-Christian polemics, which were unavailable to Colville. He also rejected the hypothesis that Hafs was a Jewish converso on the basis that Jewish writers who felt uncomfortable with using the works of apostates used the works of Hafs extensively. Neubauer believed Hafs to be an Arab or Syriac Christian due to his use of eastern forms of Arabic. His nickname, 'the Goth', and his gothic patronym suggest a gothic background and not an Arab/Syriac one. Today, he is taken to be of Visigothic background.
Works
Hafs wrote all of his surviving works in Arabic. One of the reasons he did this was to remove, or at least weaken, the link between the Arabic language and Islam. While some see Hafs as moving away from Álvaro's beliefs, which is often taken to be opposed to Arabism, others think of him as equally missionary-minded and interested in preserving Christian beliefs and culture. Others think Álvaro believed that Arabisation "would open the door to the assimilation of a series of Islamic ideas and practices opposed to Christian orthodoxy", aligning Hafs and Álvaro much more closely. It seems that Álvaro himself was Arabised and had a good grasp of Classical Arabic and Arabic poetry, so his apparent denunciation of that language and culture is unlikely to be a hypocritical rejection of Arabism per se, but rather a fear about being inducted into Islamic or Islamised culture. While Álvaro focused on defending Christianity and to an extent, Latin-speaking Visigothic culture, Hafs was subtly challenging Islam by associating Arabic with Christian works. Hafs lived at a time when there were many considered to be al-‘ajamiyyah, that is a native speaker of a non-Arabic language, while nevertheless mastering the Arabic language. By belonging to a linguistic hybridism, Hafs was able to participate in both Gothic and Arabic cultures. His works, despite being written in Arabic, were essentially written by a Goth for a Gothic audience similar to Álvaro's works.
Yet, he certainly went beyond Álvaro in that he used Islamised vocabulary throughout his works (such as referring to the Psalms as suras), even when he expressed Christian ideas completely in opposition to Islam, such as the Trinity or that the Psalms were prophecies of Jesus' life.van Koningsveld, P.. The Arabic Psalter of Hafs ibn Albar al-Quti: Prolegomena for a Critical Edition His free use of complex Arabic poetic forms and Islamic-sounding language limited the marginalisation that Christians felt during the 10th century and after. All major Mozarabic intellectuals who lived after Hafs used Arabic extensively.
Arabic Psalter
Hafs translated the entire book of Psalms into the Arabic language with a poetic urjūzah prologue of his own,Monferrer-Sala, Juan Pedro. "Translating in ninth century Cordoba. Notes on the urjūzah of Ḥafs ibn Albar al-Qūṭī to his Arabic poetic version of Sifr al-zubūr." Transletters. International Journal of Translation and Interpreting 1 (1) (2018): 79-92. completing the work in 889AD. Each Psalm has a heading explaining whether the Psalm relates to Christ's life, the Church or the spiritual health of believers. An example of this is his heading to Psalm 1, which states "This Psalm predicts the Nativity of the Messiah, the son of Mary". The urjūzah prologue served to answer criticisms of his previous translations and to anticipate criticisms of his Psalter. In it, he justified the methods he used to translate the Psalms, as well his use of not only the Arabic language but poetic forms specific to Andalusi culture that may have been controversial at the time. Hafs only consulted "scholars, trustworthy men of our religion" during his translation, so his form of Arabic represents Christian Arabic independent of Islamic Arabic.Christys, Ann. "The Qur’ān as History for Muslims and Christians in al-Andalus." Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 5.1 (2018): 55-73. This does show some influence of Islamic legal terminology.
He translated the Psalter with the help and permission of Bishop Valens or Valentius of CórdobaRodriguez, Joaquín Mellado. La lengua de los mozárabes. Otra lectura de las fuentes [The language of the Mozarabs. A new reading of the sources] (2018) (862-875), a partisan of Abbot Samson Cordubensis and a correspondent of Alvarus,Dunlop, Douglas Morton. "Sobre Ḥafṣ ibn Albar al-Qūṭī al-Qurṭubī." al-Andalus 20 (1955): 211. whom Hafs highly esteemed and described as "noted for his sublime qualities, the best bishop now as well as in the past".Van Koningsveld, P. Sj. "Christian Arabic literature from medieval Spain: An attempt at periodization." Christian Arabic Apologetics During the Abbasid Period (750-1258). Brill, 1994. 203-224. As the author of the Apologeticus Contra Perfidos, Abbot Samson is noted for being among the last major Mozarabic writers to write in Latin who nevertheless turned his attention to translating works from Latin to Arabic, "epitomising the new reality" of Arabic language prominence in the Mozarabic community. Hafs belonged to the next generation of Mozarabic scholars whose "grasp of Arabic was more secure".