Al-Fath ibn Khaqan (al-Andalus)

Born in Seville, al-Andalus (now Spain), he received an elite education and travelled widely across al-Andalus. Described as a 'libertine' and yet he was appointed secretary to the Almoravid governor of Granada Abū Yūsuf Tāshfīn ibn ‘Alī; a post he abandoned almost immediately to travel to Morocco in the Maghreb where sometime later he was murdered in his Marrakesh hotel, it was rumoured, on the orders of the sultan.[2]

• Qalā'id al-'Iqyān (قلائد العقيان) ‘Collars of Gold’ or 'Necklace of Rubies'; akhbar (traditions) of poets of the Maghreb and al-Andalus, who were his contemporaries with examples of their poems.[3][4]
• Maṭmaḥ al-anfus wa-masraḥ al-taʼannus fī mulaḥ ahl al-Andalus (مطمح الأنفس ومسرح التأنس في ملح أهل الأندلس) (Kābir, Wāsiṭ, Saghīr  – Large, Medium, Small) 'The Aspiration of the Souls and the Theater of Congeniality in the Anecdotes of the People of al-Andalus';[5] History of the ministers, scribes and poets of al-Andalus.

These two works are written in rhymed prose full of metaphorical expressions and are an excellent source of information about the apogee of Andalusian letters.

• Ibn Khallikan – Wafayāt al-A’yān wa-Anbā’ Abnā’ al-Zamān (tr. Obituaries of Eminent Men}[1]
• Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Diyha al-Kalbī – Al-Mutrib fī Ash’ār Ahl il-Mughrib[2]
• Al-Ṣafadī – Al-Wāfī bi-'l-wafayāt

• Ben Cheneb, Ch.; Pellat (1983) [1965], "Al-Fatḥ ibn Khāqān", The Encyclopedia of Islam, ii (New ed.), Leiden: E. J. Brill, p. 838
• Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Diyha al-Kalbī, ‘Umar ibn al-Ḥasan (1954). Al-Mutrib fī Ash’ār Ahl il-Mughrib (in Arabic). Cairo: Maktaba al-Misri.
• Khallikān (Ibn), Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (1843). Wafayāt al-A’yān wa-Anbā’ Abnā’ al-Zamān (The Obituaries of Eminent Men). II. Translated by McGuckin de Slane, William. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. pp. 455–6.
• Ṣafadī (aṣ-), Salah al-Dīn (1993), ʻAdnān al-Baḫīt, Muḥammạd (ed.), "Al-Wāfī bi-'l-wafayāt (Preface)", Bibliotheca islamica (in Arabic), Beirut, I
• Weyer, Hendrik Engelinus (1831). Hamaker, Hendrik Arent (ed.). Specimen criticum exhibens locos Ibn Khacanis de Ibn Zeidouno (in Arabic and Latin). Leiden.
• Weyer, Hendrik Engelinus (1840), Orientalia (in Latin), I, Amstelodami: Johannem Müller, pp. 295–501

• Literary Excerpts on Art and Architecture in Andalusia, compiled and translated by Cynthia Robinson, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton