About the book: year / Historical and biographical books occupied a large place in medieval Arabic prose, including in Andalusian prose literature character, telling about “famous men - caliphs, emirs and generals, about their campaigns and conquests, about embassies and various memorable events. Among such works there are also historical chronicles, in which everything, even the most insignificant events, is listed by year. There are also works that can hardly be called real chronicles, because in them the author, abandoning the impartial tone of the “chronicler,” pays attention primarily to those events that are especially close and interesting to him. The first author in Andalusia is “al-akhbar” (lit. : “chronicle”) was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Aziz, nicknamed Ibp al-Qutiyya, a descendant of a Gothic princess, granddaughter of the Gothic king Vititsa (in Arabic script, Gititsa). Ibn al-Qutiyya was born in Cordoba, studied with the most famous historians, philologists and lawyers of Cordoba and Seville. His essay “The History of the Conquest of Andalusia” is especially famous. In this book, the author’s pride in the glorious past of his family is clearly felt; he extols the valor of Sarah, a Gothian, and the statesmanship of Artabas, a descendant of the last king of the Goths. Ibn al-Qutiyya is a representative of a unique nationality that developed in medieval Arab Spain; he is neither an Arab nor a Berber, but not a Goth either; he is a true Andalusian, treating his Muslim and Christian ancestors with equal respect. (Translation by B. Shidfar and V. Mikushevich from the publication: Ibn al-Qutiyya. Tarikh if-titah al-Andalus. Beirut, 1957.)