Al-Qifti
Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan 'Alī ibn Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm ibn 'Abd al-Wahid al-Shaybānī (جمال الدين أبو الحسن علي بن يوسف بن ٳبراهي بن عبد الواحد الشيباني),Buyids and the Maghreb, and biographical dictionaries of philosophers and philologists.
Life
'Alī al-Qifṭī, known as Ibn al-Qifṭī, was a native of
Ayyūbid court. Alī succeeded his father and grandfather into court administration but displayed scholarly inclinations. When the family left Qift in 1177, following the rising of a Fāṭimid Pretender
, his father, Yūsuf, took up official posts in Upper Egypt and 'Alī completed his early education in Cairo.
In 583/1187 Yūsuf al-Qifṭī was appointed deputy to
Ashraf. Ibn al-Qifṭī sought patronage in Aleppo as secretary to the former governor of Jerusalem and Nablus, Fāris al-Din Maimūn al Qaṣrī, the then vizier to the Ayyubid emir Ṣalāh al-Dīn's third son, Malik aẓ-Ẓāhir Ghāzi. He was recognised as an effective administrator of the fiefs and when the vizier died in 610/1214 aẓ-Ẓāhir appointed him khāzin of the Dīwān of Finance, despite his own preference for study. On aẓ-Ẓāhir's death in 613/1216 al-Qifti retired but was re-appointed three years later by aẓ-Ẓāhir's successor. He remained in office until 628/1231. According to his protégé and biographer, Yaqūt, writing before 624/1227[4] al-Qifti already held the honorific title "al-Qāḍī 'l-Akram al-Wazir" (most noble judge chief minister).[2] After a five-year sabbatical al-Qifṭī took up the office of vizier in 633/1236 and held it up to his death in 646/1248.[5] During that time he was also a member, along with Shams al-Din Lu'lu' al-Amini, of the regency council that governed on behalf of an-Nasir Yusuf.[6]
Throughout his life al-Qifṭī advocated scholarship and sought to pursue a literary career despite heavy constraints of high office. When Yaqūt had fled the Mongol invasion to Aleppo, he had received shelter from al-Qifti, who had assisted him in the compilation of his great geographical and biographical encyclopedia, known as Irshad.
Al-Ṣafadī copied this list in his Wāfī fi 'l-Wafayāt and Al-Kutubī
's Fawāt al-Wafayat (1196) borrowed from it, but his copy is corrupted by many errors.
Works
Al-Qifṭī wrote mainly historical works and of 26 recorded titles just two survive:
Extant
- Kitāb Ikhbār al-'Ulamā' bi Akhbār al-Ḥukamā (إخبار العلماء بأخبار الحكماء); abbrev. Ta'rikh al-Ḥukama (تاريخ الحكماء), 'The biographies and the books of the great philosophers'; a biographical dictionary of 414 physicians, philosophers and astronomers; the most important source of exact sciences and Hellenistic tradition in Islām and sole literary witness of many accounts by ancient Greek scholars.[7][8]
- Inbā ar-Rawat 'alā 'Anbā an-Nuhat (3 vol.); synopsis (647/1249) by Muḥammad ibn 'Alī az-Zawanī.[7][9]
Lost
- Precious Pearls of the Account of the Master (Ad-Dur ath-Thamin fi 'Akhbar al-Mutīmīn) (الدر الثمين في أخبار المتيمين)
- Report of the Muhammad Poets, (Akhbar al-Muhammadin min al-Shuara), (posthumous); only fragments[10]
- History of Maḥmūd b. Sübüktigin (Sabuktakin) and His Sons'(wabanīhi, in al-Kubutī wabakīyat)
- History of the Seljuks, from the Beginning to the End of the Dynasty (Baqiat Tārīkh as-Siljūqīa) (بقية تاريخ السلجوقية)
- Apostles of Poets; arranged by al-Aba' up to Muḥammad bin Sa'īd; posthumous work written by al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham; History of the Poets; only poets named Muḥammad extant) (Kitāb al-Muhmidīn min ash-Shu'ra'i; ratibah 'alā al-Ābā' wa balagh bīhī Muḥammad bin Sa'id.) (كتاب المحمدين من الشعراء. رتبه على الآباء وبلغ به محمد بن سعيد) (wa Katab 'an al-Hasan bin al-Haythm) (وكتب عن الحسن بن الهيثم)
- History of the Mirdasids (Akhbar al-Mirdas) (أخبار آلمرداس)
- The Biographies and Books of the Great Philosophers (Akhbar al-Alama bi Akhyar al-Hukama)(إخبار العلماء بأخيار الحكماء)[11]
- Account of the Grammarians (Akhbar an-Nahwiyyin) (إخبار النحوين); survives only in abstract by Muh. b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi.
- Account of the Writers and their Writings (Akhbar al-Musanafin wa ma Sanafuh) (أخبار المصنفين وما صنفوه)[12]
- History of the Yemen (Tarikh al-Yemen) (تاريخ اليمن)
- Egypt; in six parts ('Akhbār Misr, fi sitta 'Ajza') (أخبار مصر، في ستة أجزاء):: including
- History of Cairo until the reign of Salah al-Din; identical to Comprehensive Tarikh al-Qifti contained in the epitome of Ibn Maktum (d. 749/1348)[citation needed]
- History of the Buyids
- History of the Maghreb
- Correction of Errors by al-Jawhari(Islāh Khilal as-Sahāhi, lil-Jawhrī) (إصلاح خلل الصحاح، للجوهري،)
- Nahza al-Khater in Literature (Nahazat al-Khāṭr >> fi-l-Adab) (نهزة الخاطر» في الأدب); History of Scholarship (the Shaykhs of al-Kindi), a supplement to the Ansab of al-Baladhuri, etc.
- Biographies of Ibn Rashiq, Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi
See also
References
Citations
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
- ^ a b Thomas, David (24 Mar 2010). "Al-Qifti". Brill Reference. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-8126-9757-5.
- ^ Yaqūt, Mu'jam al-Buldān, iv p.152
- ^ Dietrich 1971.
- ^ Humphreys 1977, p. 229.
- ^ a b Lippert, Ibn al-Qifṭīs Ta'rikh al-Ḥukamā, 1903
- ^ Al-Qifṭī, 'Alī ibn Yūsuf (2005). Shams al-Dīn, Ibrāhīm (ed.). Ikhbār al-'Ulamā' bi-akhbār al-ḥukamā' (tr. The biographies and the books of the great philosophers) (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Lebanon: Dar al-kotob al-Ilmiyah. p. 328.
- ^ ed. Abu 'l-Fadl Ibrahim
- ^ MS. Paris arab. 3335
- ^ al-Qifti ed. Shams-ad-Din, The Biographies and Books of the Great Philosophers
- ^ ed. De Goeje &. Juynboll
Bibliography
- Lippert, J, ed. (1326) [1903], Ibn al-Qifṭīs Ta'rikh al-Ḥukamā', auf Grund der Arbeiten Aug. Müllers, Leipzig, Cairo
- Al-Qifti (2005), Shams-ad-Din, Ibrahim (ed.), The Biographies and the Books of the Great Philosophers (1 ed.), Lebanon: Dar al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah
- De Goeje; Juynboll, Th. W. (eds.), "History of the Grammarians (synopsis in al-Dhahabi's autograph)", Cat. Codd. Ar. Bibl. Acad. Lugduno-Batavae, iii (xlviii) (26 ed.)
- Abū 'l-Fadl Ibrāhīm, Muḥammad, ed. (1374) [1369], Inbah al-Ruwat 'ala Anbah al-Nuhat, vol. iii, Cairo
- al-Hamawi, Yāqūt, Margoliouth (ed.), Irshād al-Arīb, vol. vi, G.M.S., pp. 447–494
- aṣ-Ṣafadī, Wāfī fi 'l-Wafayāt, pp. 233–234
- al-Kutubī (1299), Fawāt al-Wafayāt, Cairo, p. 1197
- as-Suyūṭī, Bughyat al-Wu'āt, p. 358
- ibid., Ḥusn al-Muḥāḍara, vol. i, p. 319
- Leclerc (ed.), Hist. de la méd. ar., vol. ii, pp. 193–198
- Steinschneider (1877), "Polemische und apologetische Literatur", Ab für die Kunde des Morg. (111): 129
- Wüstenfeld, Ferdinand, Geschichtsschreiber der Araber, p. 331
- Brockelmann, Carl (ed.), Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (G.A.L.), vol. i, p. 325
- Müller, A, ed. (1891), "Über das sogenannte Tar'ikh al-ḥukamā' des Ibn al-Qifṭī", Actes du 8e congrès internat. Des orient., i, Leyden: 15–36
- Dérenbourg, H (1905), "L'histoire des philosophes attribuée à Ibn al-Kifti", Opuscule, Paris: 37–48
- Houtsma, M. Th.; Wensinck, A. J.; Arnold, T. W.; Heffening, W.; Lévi-Provençal, E., eds. (1927), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Dictionary of the Geography, Ethnography & Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples, E-K, vol. ii, Leyden
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - al-Kutubī (1951), Dietrich, A (ed.), Fawat, vol. ii, Cairo, pp. 191–3
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Dietrich, A. (1971). "Ibn al-Ḳifṭī". In OCLC 495469525.
- Humphreys, R. Stephen (1977). From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260. State University of New York Press.
- Yaqut, Mu'jam al-Udaba', vol. xv, Cairo, pp. 175–204
- Yaqūt, Margoliouth (ed.), Irshad, vol. v, pp. 477–94
- ibid, Mu'jam al-Buldan, vol. iv, p. 152
- Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, 'Uyun al-anba', (index)
- Barhebraeus, 'Alhani (ed.), Tarikh Mukhtasar ad-Duwal, p. 476
- Suyutī (1326), Bughya, Cairo, p. 358
- idem (1321), Husn al-Muhadara, vol. i, Cairo, p. 265
- Ibn al-'Imad, Shadharat, vol. v, p. 236
- Adfawi (1333), al-Tali' as-Sa'id, Cairo, p. 237 f
- Ibn Taghribirdi (1355), Nujum, vol. vi, Cairo, p. 361
- Müller, A., ed. (1890), Actes du 8e Congres Internat. des Orientalistes, Leiden, pp. 15–36
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Brockelmann, Carl (ed.), "S I", Ibn al-Ḳifṭī, vol. I2, p. 559
- Sellheim, R, ed. (1955), Oriens, pp. 348–352
External links
New International Encyclopedia article about "Al-Qifti
".- English translation of a portion of Al-Qifti's Tarikh al-hukama - dealing with the destruction of the library of Alexandria.
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