When the city of Córdoba, Spain, fell to the fell to the Catholic Mushrikin in the 600s A.H., al-Imām Muḥammad al-Qurṭubī was forced to flee to its outskirts for refuge.

He writes in his Tafsīr of the Qur‘ān (10/269):

❝I was running from the enemy and had to change my course. Shortly thereafter, I was followed by two enemy horsemen. I was in an open area with nothing to prevent them from seeing me. I began to recite the beginning of Sūrat Yasīn and some other Qur‘ānic verses. The two horsemen passed me, and then returned and passed me again without seeing me. I heard one of them telling the other: he must have been a Diablo (devil)! Allāh ‘Azza wa Jal blinded them from seeing me, so Al-Ḥamdulilāh for this.❞

Ever wondered how the houses during al-Andalus looked like. Here is a house that belonged to the powerful ruler of Córdoba, al-Andalus, Muhammad ibn Abī Umar.

District Hayājīn in Gharnāta

Inside the Alhambra in Gharnāta

Some snippets of the book.

It’s a very interesting book on history showing the ijazat of the two scholars at the end of the era of al-Andalus.

Showing all the names in the chains of ulama of the ijazat during the Nasrid era (15th Century) in Granda and Málaga, that granted Ijazat to the judge ibn al-Azrāq al-Mālikī and his son.