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LUBNA FROM CORDOBA – ANDALUSIAN WOMAN INTELLECTUAL AND MATHEMATICIAN

Lubna Cordovska – Andalusian woman intellectual and mathematician

Born into a family of slaves, Lubna from Cordoba rose to the position of senior secretary of the Caliph and curator of the Cordoba Library.

There is very little information about the life of Lubna from Cordoba – the exact dates of her birth and death are unknown, and little is reported about her in historical sources. It is known that she was born into a family of slaves who worked in the palace of the first Umayyad caliph of Cordoba, Abdurrahman III (891-961), and grew up within its walls.

She impressed the members of the royal family with her education and brilliant mind, earning the freedom and the post of senior secretary (katiba al-kubra) of the caliph. Lubna was also appointed a scribe at the palace library, which allowed her to lead it in the future. This was not uncommon: according to Arab chronicles, during the time of Caliph Al-Hakam II (915-976), the son of Abdurrahman III, under whom the cultural flourishing of Muslim Spain continued, there were more than 170 female scribes in different regions of Cordoba. This gives an idea of ​​the role of women during the reign of this caliph, as well as the level of literacy among them. In addition to Lubna, the name of another educated woman who served in the palace of Al-Hakam II has survived. It is reported that her name was Fatima and she was the secretary of the Caliph.

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Later Lubna from Cordoba was appointed curator of the library of Cordoba, which contained more than 500,000 books. She was responsible for the rewriting, creation and translation of manuscripts. Her translation of Greek texts into Arabic has preserved them for history. Together with the Jew Hasdai ibn Shabrut, Lubna of Cordoba was the initiator of the creation of the famous library of Madina al-Zahra, a huge palace-city built by Abdurrahman III (912-961), the first Umayyad caliph of Cordoba. This palace was located on the western outskirts of Cordoba and was actually the capital of Andalusia, since the administration and government of the country were located within its walls.

Lubna was not just a copyist and translator of books, but also created comments on individual works, made annotations to the manuscripts stored in the library, indicating the origin of the author and a brief overview of the work. She also educated poor children in Andalus by teaching them mathematics.

The Andalusian historian and chronicler Ibn Bashkaval wrote about Lubna from Cordoba: “She wrote excellently, knew grammar and poetry. Her knowledge of mathematics was enormous. She was also experienced in other sciences. There was no one more noble than her in the Umayyad palace. “

Responsible for replenishing the library, Lubna traveled to the Middle East and in search of rare manuscripts visited Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad.

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