Basil Dragonstrike

Basil

I, Basil Dragonstrike, first found the SCA in 1979, and was attracted to it because of my already existant interest in heraldry. Heraldry remains my main activity to this day.

Orignally, I could not settle on a place & time for a "persona." However, a few years back I read John Julius Norwich's Normans in the South books, and started concentrating on 11th and 12th century CE Sicily. However, the more I reasearched, the less interested in the Normans and other "Firandj" I became, and the more interested in the Muslims I became. Eventually, I decided a 10th century CE Muslim with connections to Sicily and al-Andalus was where and when I wanted to base my "persona" on.

Obviously, in that case the name "Basil Dragonstrike" would not do. I submitted and passed an Arabic name that used "Bāsil" and a lot of other stuff. However, upon consideration, I decided that if I was going to play a character, I wanted to get away from "Basil"---after all, "Basil Dragonstrike" is fairly well known among heralds, and people of my branch (Porte de l'Eau/Madrone), and has been around a long, long time, and has associations that don't fit the character I want to play. So, I'm keeping "Basil Dragonstrke" for out-of-character stuff, and introducing Mālik ibn Ḳārin ibn al-Māridī ibn Djinnī al-Ābdarī al-Shaybānī as a mostly in-character "persona". Note that so far I've registered Mālik ibn Djinnī al-Shaybānī; the longer form is in the registration process.

I've been researching Islamdom and Muslim culture, particularly of the 9th - 11th centuries CE. I've written a number of articles on Arabic names (index of all articles), and plan to expand to articles on the culture of Mālik's time, though I'm not sure where to put those online; I may have to start a blog or some such thing.

I'm trying to get into storytelling, but being distinctly introverted doesn't help with that.

Notes on things

I put "persona" into quotes as I dislike what it has come to mean. Originally, as I was told, it was a fictional but history-based someone-who-might-have-been, that one took to events and pretended to be. However, in my experience, it has become a pile of facts and numbers and dates and so-on some people memorize and talk about, rather than portray. Hence my use of "character"---this is someone I can pretend to be at an event. And it is that which interests me. Even though I've studies a lot about what and where and when that Mālik ibn Ḳārin ibn al-Māridī ibn Djinnī al-Ābdarī al-Shaybānī might have experienced, I have done so it make him more "real" in my mind, so I can more easily and more thoroughly immerse myself in the co-operative improvisation I want my SCA experience to be.

Which leads to my objection to the utter lack of role-playing I see in An Tir events these days. I really hope this will turn around, though I don't know what, if anything, I can do to make that happen.

Mālik ibn Djinni

Born in the 3rd month of the year 231 of the Hidjra in Balarm, the principal city of Sikilliya, Mālik ibn Djinni al-Shaybānī has travelled widely, both by sea and by land. Now, in early 300, just shy of 69 years old, he has settled in al-Andalus, though he journeys between Qurṭuba, Ishbīliya, Ḳādis, and anywhere else he feels like --- when he can afford it. However, he avoids travel on the sea, declaring he's had enough of that.

He knows a good bit about "the Faranj" due to working in a trade-related job in Balarm in his youth, but his "knowledge" is not without a few errors, and a few stereotypes. He also has extensive if somewhat spotty knowledge of India and China, and Central Asia. But he's usually quiet, and rarely tells tales---and some of them are not about what he's seen/done himself.

(Please note: Mālik is pronounced with the "a" as in "father," the "i" as in "pit," and the accent on the first syllable. IOW, "Maalik")