Knowledge as Persuasion in the Oratory of an Almohad Qadi: Abū Ḥafṣ ‘Umar al-Sulamī al-Aġmātī

This article analyses the Almohad judge Ibn ʿUmar al-Sulamī al-Aġmātī’s (d. 603/1206 or 1207) oration (ḫuṭba) against the philosophers. In the absence of any contemporaneous descriptions of the circumstances in which al-Sulamī composed and presumably delivered this ḫuṭba, I evaluate the historiographic evidence that contextualizes the sermon as part of what the Moroccan historian Muḥammad Ibn Šarīfa dubbed the “propaganda campaign” in which, at the instigation of Almohad Caliph al-Manṣūr, the study of Graeco-Islamic philosophy and the “sciences of the Ancients” was prohibited and Ibn Rušd (Averroes) and his fellow travellers were relieved of their official positions. The article examines the biographical details of al-Sulamī’s life, career, and writings and attempts to reconstruct a portrait of his relations with the Almohad authorities and their religious policies. It then evaluates the data concerning the preservation and transmission of the text. Finally, it analyzes the ḫuṭba drawing upon Arabic discourse and rhetorical analysis and speech acts theory to illustrate al-Sulamī’s techniques of persuasion and to demonstrate how they articulated Almohad policies and ideology. The study seeks to shed light on how the Almohads deployed Arabic oratory as an instrument of propaganda and public persuasion during a transition in their official policies away from the previous patronage of the philosophers.