Abū Bakr Yaḥyà b. `Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Wāfid al-Lajmī al-Yaḥṣubī (Cordoba, mid-Du l-ḥiǧǧa 404/June 1014) was a Cordovan judge and legal expert who was persecuted and subjected to public humiliation for his opposition to the Berbers and his unswerving loyalty to the Umayyads. 

His intellectual and political career and his fall from grace are intimately linked to the city of Cordoba. During her presentation, Delfina Serrano will provide a detailed description of the milestones in his life story, which unfolded, until his tragic end, in a series of private and public, intellectual, legal/religious and political physical spaces which, although we cannot always associate them with specific places, illustrate the history of that era and the city. Likewise, these spaces provided the symbolic setting for the literary construction of a model of heroic resistance in the face of tyranny and injustice based on the moral integrity of the sage as an expert in Islamic religious sciences, based on Ibn Wāfid’s experience. 

Delfina Serrano Ruano is an Arab and Islamic Studies specialist and a Senior Scientist with the CSIC’s Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East. Serrano’s research work revolves around the study of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and its ties with other Islamic religious sciences such as kalām or discursive theology, and Sufism. Her publications deal with these topics in terms of doctrine and praxis, and within specific socio-historical contexts, including the contemporary era. Her works have appeared in prestigious international academic journals and other published works. Until 2020, she directed the editorial series “Arabic and Islamic Studies” (CSIC) and is currently secretary of the journal Al-Qantara(CSIC).