This article explores a sixth/twelfth century memoir of an Andalusi polymath who travelled from the small a’ifa kingdom of Denia in the Iberian Peninsula, to Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, in search of patronage at the court of the Fa imid vizier al-Af al b. Badr al-Jamali (d. 515/1121). The memoir, called al-Risala al-Mi riyya, is authored by Umayya b. ‘Abd al-‘A...