Orality, Liturgy, and Transcendence in Ḥafṣ Ibn Albar’s Kitāb al-Zabūr (889 CE)

Perhaps the most well-known figure from among the Arabized Christians of al-Andalus, the theologian and scholar Ḥafṣ Ibn Albar of Cordoba (fl. late ninth/early tenth century CE) has attracted considerable scholarly attention. The work that has drawn the most attention, extant in its entirety, is Ibn Albar’s translation into the classical Arabic meter of rajaz of Jerome’s Latin Psalter, rendered from the Hebrew. Most scholars have focused on this text as a lens into Arabization and Islamization among Iberian Christians and the impact of acculturation on Christian doctrine. However, the relationship between poetic form and liturgical practice in Ibn Albar’s translation has received less attention. In the present article, I explore this relationship. I offer a close reading of Kitāb al-Zabūr in dialogue with its Vorlagen, the Old Hispanic liturgy, and Qurʾānic recitation. I argue that Ibn Albar’s translation exploits and amplifies the characteristic orality of its sources and communicates the Psalms principally as liturgical practice, ad intra and ad extra. I conclude that Ibn Albar’s Psalter reinforces Latin Christian tradition while also transcending it.