A Section on the Permissibility of Eating the Food of Sultans and Accepting Their Gifts

Abstract

The research aims to investigate the manuscript “A Section on the Permissibility of Eating the Food of Sultans and Accepting Their Gifts” which was dictated by Al-Hafeth: Abu Omar Yusuf bin Abdullah bin Abdulbarr Al-Namri Al-Qurtubi (d. 463 AH). Its importance lies in the fact that it is the first text we find devoted to the issue of gifts from political authority. In this article, I publish the text of Abu Omar bin Abdulbarr Al-Qurtubi, in which he discusses the issue of accepting gifts and rewards from the sultans for jurists and religious scholars. The text is an important historical document that addresses some aspects of the debate in Andalusia between jurists, a debate about which we knew little before. It also provides us with new information about Ibn Abdulbarr’s scientific disputes. Although we know that his inclination towards the hadith brought criticism upon him from the Maliki jurists, we have not previously known of any news of disputes related in any way to proximity to political authority.