Nufadat al-Jirab fi Ullat al-Ightirab
- Author died
- 776 AH
- Editions
- Nufadat al-Jirab fi Ullat al-Ightirab
Nufadat al-Jirab fi Ullat al-Ightirab (The Shaking of the Bag for Solace in Exile) is a historical, literary, and travelogue work written by the Andalusian vizier and scholar Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib (713–776 AH / 1313–1374 CE) . It serves as a personal record and memoir chronicling his period of exile in the Maghrib alongside his patron, the Nasrid Sultan Muhammad V al-Ghani Billah .
Composition and Structure
The book documents Ibn al-Khatib's stay in Morocco, primarily in the city of Sale, between 760 and 763 AH (1359–1362 CE) during the temporary deposition of Sultan Muhammad V from Granada . In another account, it is described as having been compiled in Morocco late in his life . Ibn al-Khatib referred to the book elsewhere in his writings; in his work Rayhanat al-Kuttab, it is mentioned under the variant title Nufakhat al-Jirab as consisting of three volumes, and elsewhere in the same work as Nufadat al-Jirab .
Sources differ on its original division: some describe it as comprising four volumes or travel journals (asfar), while others state it was in three parts . Unlike his other travel treatises, such as Khatrat al-Tayf and Mi'yar al-Ikhtiyar, which were composed in ornate rhymed prose (saj'), Ibn al-Khatib wrote the descriptive narrative of this work in straightforward, unrhymed prose (mursala), interspersing it with poetry and personal correspondence .
Content and Themes
The work combines autobiographical reflections, geographic travel accounts, social observations, and diplomatic literature . Its contents include:
- Travels and Geography: Descriptions of Moroccan cities, regions, mosques, libraries, and madrasas . The surviving second volume opens with an account of ascending Mount Hintata in the Atlas range, visiting the tomb of the Marinid Sultan Abu al-Hasan al-Marini, and detailing the customs and state of the Hintata tribe . It also records visits to Aghmat—including the tomb of the poet-king al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, whom he eulogized in verse—as well as Marrakech and Sale on the Atlantic coast .
- Political Events: Congratulatory messages to the Marinid Sultan Abu Salim al-Marini on his conquest of Tlemcen, along with reports on the internal conditions of Granada under the usurping ruler Abu Sa'id al-Barmikho .
- Personal and Literary Material: Epistles sent to colleagues, biographical remarks on scholars he encountered, lists of texts he authored in Morocco, and personal poems, including an elegy for his wife following her death in 762 AH .
In literary standing, the work has been regarded as secondary in importance among Ibn al-Khatib's historical output only to his biographical compendium al-Ihatah fi Akhbar Gharnatah .
Survival and Publication
Large portions of the original work were lost over time . The second volume was preserved and later edited by Ahmad Mukhtar al-'Abbadi, published in Cairo in 1968 by Dar al-Katib al-'Arabi . A manuscript of the third volume was subsequently discovered by Abd al-Wahhab Ibn Mansur .
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