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Yahya al-Ghazal: the travels of an ambassador between Umayyad Cordoba and Constantinople
March 04, 20257:00 p.m.
CORDOBA
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
On Tuesday March 4, researcher Elsa Cardoso, of the CSIC’s EEA, will be giving the third session in the event series “Semblances of Cordoba: The Umayyad era in the first person,” which gives us a closer look at the Umayyads’ diplomacy practices in Al-Andalus.
By examining the figure of Yahya al-Ghazal (772-866), a poet and courtier of the Umayyad emir ‘Abd al-Rahman II, the purpose of this conference is to discuss the diplomatic practices of the Umayyads in Al-Andalus, especially the ceremonies surrounding them. In response to the Byzantine Embassy received in Cordoba in 839/840, ‘Abd al-Rahman II entrusted the poet al-Ghazal with the mission of leading Cordoba’s delegation to Constantinople, which was sent to Emperor Theophilus. How was an ambassador chosen and what characteristics were considered necessary for a diplomatic mission in Al-Andalus and in the Mediterranean? What challenges did an ambassador face in the ninth century? What was similar and different about the diplomatic ceremonies when comparing Cordoba and Constantinople? Within this context, we will be discussing the gestures, rituals, language and even poetry forming an integral part of diplomacy. Despite the fact that the description of al-Ghazal’s embassy has been dismissed as merely anecdotal information, the situations depicted reveal the existence of a common ceremonial language, though it may not always have been shared or practiced.
Elsa Cardoso is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the School of Arab Studies (EEA) at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Granada. She received her PhD from the University of Lisbon in 2020. From 2022 to 2024, she was a Juan de la Cierva contracted PhD holder with the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East (ILC) at the CSIC in Madrid. From 2021 to 2022, she was a post-doc Research Fellow at the RomanIslam Center for Advanced Studies, at the University of Hamburg (2021-2022), which was funded by the German state agency for science (DFG).
Her research focuses on the history of Islam and the history of Al-Andalus. She has worked and published articles on the court, diplomacy, politics and ceremonies of Cordoba’s Umayyads, examining the topic from a comparative perspective within the Mediterranean. She also carries out research on the historiography of Al-Andalus, as well as on the history of Gharb Al-Andalus (western Al-Andalus). She authored the book The Door of the Caliph: Concepts of the Court in the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus (2023), published by Routledge.
Elsa Cardoso is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the School of Arab Studies (EEA) at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Granada. She received her PhD from the University of Lisbon in 2020. From 2022 to 2024, she was a Juan de la Cierva contracted PhD holder with the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East (ILC) at the CSIC in Madrid. From 2021 to 2022, she was a post-doc Research Fellow at the RomanIslam Center for Advanced Studies, at the University of Hamburg (2021-2022), which was funded by the German state agency for science (DFG).
Her research focuses on the history of Islam and the history of Al-Andalus. She has worked and published articles on the court, diplomacy, politics and ceremonies of Cordoba’s Umayyads, examining the topic from a comparative perspective within the Mediterranean. She also carries out research on the historiography of Al-Andalus, as well as on the history of Gharb Al-Andalus (western Al-Andalus). She authored the book The Door of the Caliph: Concepts of the Court in the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus (2023), published by Routledge.
