Al-Udri or Al-Udhri (in full Abu al-abbas Ahmad ibn Umar ibn Anas ibn Dilhat ibn Abu al-Jiyar Anas ibn Faladan ibn Imran ibn Munayb ibn Zugayba ibn Qutba al-Udri,
Arabic: أحمد بن عمر بن انس بن دلهاث بن انس بن فلذان بن عمر بن منيب العذري, 1003–1085), was an
Arab Geographer, traveler and historian of
al-Andalus. He hailed from the Arab tribe of
Udra which had settled
Almería.[1][2]
Born in
Almería in 1003, Al-Udri journeyed to
Mecca as a young boy. During his ten-year stay, he studied with Abu Dhar al-Harawi. Upon his return to al-Andalus he was apprenticed to
Abu Umar Ibn 'Abd al-Barr and later
Ibn Hazm.[3] He lived in
Zaragoza and was the author of a geographical-historical compendium about the
Taifa of Zaragoza in al-Andalus, in which he gives the annals of the region. He is also the author of the family histories of the
Banu Qasi, Banu Sabrit, and
Banu Tujib, which are now lost, but were cited by al-Maqqari. He is best known for the Tarsi al-akhbar (Nizam al-murdjan),[4] a history of the civil wars and rebellions on the
Upper March and the
civil war in the
Taifa of Almería.
Works
"Tarsi al-akhbar wa-tanwi al-athar wa-al-bustan" (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos en Madrid, 1965) relevant parts of which have been abstracted and translated by:
E. Molina López, "La cora de Tudmir según al-Udri", Cuadernos de Historia del Islam, 4 (1972), 7-113
Fernando de La Granja, A marca superior en la obra de Al-ʿUdri, Estudios de la Edad Media de la Corona de Aragón, 8 (Saragossa 1967), 457-461
Jesús Lorenzo Jiménez, La Dawla de los Banu Qasi (2010, on source CD)