Ukbara, Iraq As A Possible Source
On the left bank of the Tigris between Samarra and Baghdad was the city of ‘Ukbarâ (عكبرا, q. v.), located along a river that flows southward out of Asia Minor, and the birthplace of at least two Jewish "heresiarchs", who led the "Okbarite" heretical movement within Karaism, itself a heresy in the eyes of orthodox Judaism. In another parallel, the thirteenth century was marked in Iraq by the invasion of the Mongols, who repeatedly persecuted their Muslim subjects. It was also the birthplace of a great Islamic scholar and grammarian, al-Ukbari, who – like Borges' father, and later Borges himself – was blind.
A possible source for Borges might have been the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901–1906, whose entry for the town is simply a cross-reference to an article on one of its "heresiarchs", Meshwi al-Ukbari. Another – probably less readily available – might be the Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste of 1818, specifically its article.
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