Al-Andalus Chair: 'Arab sources for the history of al-Andalus'.

Historiographical sources are an essential tool for the knowledge of any society. In the case of al-Andalus, Arabists and historians point to the existence of an immense written corpus, unparalleled in any other early Mediterranean society. This vast arsenal of Arabic manuscripts includes texts of all kinds, from chronicles to biographical dictionaries, treatises on medicine, agriculture or astrology, legal compendia, epistolary collections, poetry or notarial forms.

Throughout the numerous sessions of the Chair al-Andalus over the years, many people have been interested in the knowledge of these Andalusian historiographical sources, although the dissemination of these sources is usually limited to specialised academic spheres.

The aim of this session of the Chair al-Andalus is, therefore, to offer an approach to the knowledge of these sources from the researcher and Arabist Juan Martos Quesadaauthor of a relevant work in this field: Andalusian Historiography. Manual of Arabic sources for the history of al-Andalus.published by the Sociedad Española de Estudios Medievales in 2022. As the author himself explains, the purpose of this book is to serve as a guide or "an ordered map to orientate oneself and not get lost in the complicated world of sources relating to the Andalusian civilisation, focusing, in order to reach a greater number of readers, on those sources that, in whole or in part, have been edited in easy-to-understand Arabic or have been translated into a Western language (...)".