Highland Hearthglow always includes a historical person as a focus of the event, and this year’s choice was the famous tastemaker of the time, Ziryab. However, al-Andalus was an era of many great thinkers remembered to this day. The Great Minds of al-Andalus display was conceived as an online Arts & Sciences opportunity where anyone in the Known World could contribute a short video essay about any great thinker from the historical context of the event. These videos were planned to be incorporated into our Livestream, and are archived here for permanent online display. We thank Doña Isabel de Tarragona and Lord Alex of Ayer for their contributions to this project.
[ John de Seville | Wallada | Maimonides | Hasdai | Lubna ]
Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (1001-1091) had a reputation for intelligence, quick-mindedness, eloquence, and depth of knowledge. She also was somewhat controversial, walking out in public without a veil. Her behavior was regarded by the local imams as perverse and was strongly criticized, but she also had numerous people who defended her, such as Ibn Hazm, the famous author of The Ring of the Dove. Wallada gained recognition for her poetry skills, particularly notable as a woman in what was a male-dominated field. [Wikipedia]
Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), commonly known as Maimonides, was a Sephardic Jewish rabbi who is widely acknowledged as one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. Originally from Córdoba, where he was born on Passover Eve, his family was exiled from Muslim-ruled Spain when they refused to convert to Islam shortly after the Almohad Caliphate conquered the Almoravid dynasty in 1148.
Hasdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915–970), also known as Abu Yusuf ben Yitzhak ben Ezra, was a Jewish scholar, physician, diplomat, and patron of science in medieval al-Andalus . He served as a minister at the court of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III of Córdoba, where he was responsible for foreign affairs and diplomacy. Renowned for his medical expertise, he is also remembered for overseeing the Arabic translation of De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, which became a cornerstone of medieval pharmacology.
Lubna de Córdoba (Lubna Al-Qortobia, لبنى القرطبية) was an Andalusian intellectual, mathematician and poet of the second half of the 10th century known for the quality of her writing and her excellence in the sciences. Lubna was born into slavery and raised within the Madīnat al-Zahrā palace. She then pursued a career within the palace as part of Al-Hakam II’s team of copyists. [Wikipedia]