Seen from Below. Five Biographes from al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī’s Ta ʾrīḫ Baġdād

Narratology seems to offer an analytical tool capable of shedding light on the way in which al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī (d. 463/1071) chooses and arranges the vast reserve of ḫabars to compose the biographies that give life to his Ta ʾrīḫ Baġdād. Following Gerard Genette’s notion of narrative instance, we can observe that in the biographies collected by al-Ḫaṭīb always lies a creative tension that guides the author in the choice and juxtaposition of every single ḫabar relating to the biographee, capable of visualizing the peculiar space in which every character moves, and bringing out a singular relationship of expectation and cooperation between author and reader. Al-Ḫaṭīb’s narrative strategies establish one or more levels of the impact that the biographed character had on the city of Baghdad, on its urban life, and on the ideological depth that animates public opinion. The five biographies examined – al-Ḫayzurān, al-Ma ʾmūn, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Ibn Sallām and Isḥāq al-Naḫaʿī – are intended to be a small but relevant sample of the creative use of the ḫabar in al-Ḫaṭīb’s (and then in an Islamic) particular conception of the history of a city.