Prof. Dr. / Khaled bin Abdul Karim Al-Bakr 

Those in charge of editing and publishing books find great difficulties in their scientific project, starting from verifying the full title of the book, then the identity of its author, the safety of its texts, their explanation, and clarifying what is obscure in them. In our hands is the book: "Al-Hulla Al-Siyara" by Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Abi Bakr Al-Quda'i Al-Balansi, known as Ibn Al-Abbar (d. 685 AH / 1260 AD). It is one of the primary Andalusian sources, intended by its author to be a biography for the princes of Andalusia and Morocco and to show their literary merits from the first century to the middle of the seventh century AH. His book became a political and literary history that mixes events and poems, seeking the news of the princes and the poetry attributed to them. It is a history with a literary flavor.

Its first edition appeared in 1963, edited by Dr. Hussein Moanes - may God have mercy on him - under the title (Al-Hulla Al-Siyara). It was preceded, as the editor himself mentioned, by early attempts to publish selected translations from the book (Al-Hulla) carried out by Reinhart Dozy 

It is known that such titles with a literary rhythm require rhyming in their title so that they appear in a complete rhymed sentence as was common for authors of those eras. However, the title of the book as it is in the hands of people today is devoid of rhyming as it consists of two words "Al-Hulla Al-Siyara". Anyone looking at them clearly realizes that Ibn Al-Abbar, being who he is in literature and poetry, did not bring these two words to keep them alone as an obscure title for a book with clear features and traits. Rather, he wanted them to start his title with a literary opening that indicates his scientific direction, then follows it with two other words explaining the basic subject of the book. Therefore, the title of the book as it reached us is incomplete. The editor did not ignore this issue and allocated a space in the introduction of his research to discuss it. He said: "Some modernists have suggested that the full title of the book is: 'Al-Hulla Al-Siyara in the Poetry of Princes'. We have not found anything to support this in the manuscript or with those trusted among those who wrote about it. Therefore, we made the title of the book: 'Al-Hulla Al-Siyara' only, even though completing it with the phrase 'in the Poetry of Princes' is reasonable." (1) 

The difficulty of completing the title for the editor was doubled by the fact that when he set out to publish the book, he only found a single copy of the manuscript kept in the Escorial Library under No. (1654). He was not able to look at another copy to find in it what he lacked in the first. Matters were made worse regarding this aspect that the editor found a deficiency at the beginning of the manuscript he relied on for editing the book, by about two or three leaves at most, containing the book's sermon and some of its opening. It is customary for authors to mention the titles of their books in full in the middle of the book's opening, known as the "Book's Sermon".

And another thing contributed to the consolidation of the circulation of the title in its deficiency without mentionable discussion, which is that some researchers dealt with the book (Al-Hulla Al-Siyara) in various scientific studies, but they did not stop around the (incomplete) title of the book to build other opinions on the opinions mentioned by Moanes, but rather refrained from diving into what they believe has no use from behind it (3).

Therefore, we do not find, as far as we know, a published opinion on this issue for one of the specialized researchers so that it can be discussed. Rather, we will start by discussing what Hussein Moanes - may God have mercy on him - concluded about the missing part of the book's title.

What catches our eye in what Moanes mentioned about the (proposed) part to complete the title of the book with the phrase: "in the Poetry of Princes" is that he, i.e. Moanes, attributed the suggestion to one of the (modernists), which means the existence of conviction among some specialists not to seek a solution to the problem by looking at the relevant sources. Then Moanes announced that he did not find either in the manuscript of the book or in what was written about (Ibn Al-Abbar) what is useful in completing the remaining part of the book's title. Therefore, he preferred to limit it to the first section of the title (Al-Hulla Al-Siyara), so he adopted it in his research and it became widespread among researchers and students of knowledge. You can hardly find any of them who knows more about the title of the book of Ibn Al-Abbar than (Al-Hulla Al-Siyara).

If