¿Fue Ṣubḥ «la plus chère des femmes fécondes»? Consideraciones sobre la dedicatoria de las arquillas califales del Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan y de la iglesia de Santa María de Fitero

Abstract

Ivory caskets from the Andalusian Caliphate housed in the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan and Santa Maria de Fitero's church, were worked for the same personage as their inscriptions, in Kufic alphabet, prove. Scholars have interpreted those passages in quite different ways though the most credited lectures are Lévi-Provençal's - who identified the personage with Ṣubḥ, concubine of al-Ḥakam II and mother of Hiﬞsām II - and Ferrandis' and Kühnel's - both of them read in the inscription «to the beloved Wallāda » —although they did not identify the personage-. Nevertheless, the philological analysis of those inscriptions underlying the interpretation made by Manuel Ocaña Jiménez and the existing historical sources, confirm the hypothesis of those luxury objects being worked for another member of the court, the uterine sister of al-Ḥakam II, Wallāda.