Ibn Gharsiya

Abū ‘Āmir Ibn Gharsīyah al-Bashkunsī (died 1084), popularly known as Ibn Gharsiya or Ibn García, was a Muwallad poet and katib (writer) in the Taifa court in Denia.

Ibn Gharsiya is known as a proponent for the shu'ubiyya polemical thought in Al-Andalus, arguing in his Risala for the relative superiority of Byzantine and Persian culture over the culture of Arabs. Some scholars have interpreted the Risālah as a work by a freed slave arguing for the inclusion of his ṣaqālibah freedmen rulers of Dénia in the dominant Arabic-Muslim culture of al-Andalus.

Personal background Ibn Gharsiya was born into a Christian Basque family, but was taken prisoner in his childhood and raised in the Islamic faith. He grew up proficient and eloquent in both Classical Arabic and the colloquial Andalusi Arabic dialect. Ibn Gharsiya was proud of his Basque origin and remained a lifelong fervent Muslim throughout his lifetime. His surname al-Bashkunsi is the Arabic word for Basque, and therefore, signified his Basque heritage. He served under the Slavic Emir of Denia, Mujāhid al-‘Āmirī, and his son, Ali ibn Mujahid. Like Ibn Gharsiya, the ruling family of Denia were also Muwallad and had broken free from the Caliphate of Cordoba after the turbulent year of 1009. Like other taifas, his kingdom had sought to distance itself from the Umayyad period. Ibn Gharsiya subsequently spent most of his life as a katib at the court of Denia.

Ideology Ibn Gharsiya was a leading proponent and advocate of the Shu'ubiyya thought in Al-Andalus.

The risala of Ibn Gharsiya Between 1051 and 1056, Ibn Gharsiya wrote a risala against the Arab ascendancy in al-Andalus, which concurrently praises non-Arab Islam. Opponents of this work have called it violent, insulting, and bitter in its attack on the Arabs and, contrary to prevailing tradition, it criticises Arab Muslims as inferior in rank and lineage. Simultaneously, it glorifies non-Arab Muslims, such as the Berbers, and also those converts from the Visigoths, Slavs, and Romans.

In the risala, Ibn Gharsiya asserts cultural superiority of the Muwalladun over the Arabs by diminishing and belittling Arab culture. American scholar James T. Monroe states that the fact of Ibn Gharsiya's risala against the Arabs going unpunished, indicates that the cause of Arabism as a meaningful social force had ceased to have any political significance.

Göran Larsson, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, points out that in spite of his extensive use of Persian traditions in his risala, Ibn Gharsiya was not promoting a specifically Persian sovereign, merely a non-Arab model of rule. To this, Monroe adds: