Al-Qifti

Jamal al-Din abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Shaybani[1] (Arabic: جمال الدين أبو الحسن علي بن يوسف القفطي‎ Jamāl al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm al-Shaybānī l-Qifṭī,[2] ca. 1172–1248) was an Egyptian Arab scholar, writer, patron, and administrator under the Ayyubid rulers of Aleppo.[1] He is remembered today mainly for his History of Learned Men.

Biography

‘Alī al-Qifṭī, known as Ibn al-Qifti, was born in 568/1172 at Qift, Upper Egypt, the son of Yūsuf al-Qifṭī (b.548/1153) who held the judicial title al-Qāḍī al-Ashraf and grandson of Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abd al-Wāḥid, who had been al-Qāḍī al-Awḥad in the Ayyūbid court. Ibn al-Qifti 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 took up official posts in Upper Egypt and ‘Alī completed his early education in Cairo.

In 583/1187 his father was appointed deputy to al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, chancellor and adviser to Ṣalāh al-Dīn at Jerusalem, and patron and benefactor of Maimonides,[3] Al-Qifṭī spent many years studying and collecting material for his later works. When Ṣalāh al-Dīn died in 598/1201 and his brother, Malik al-‘Ādil, usurped his nephew’s position to occupy Jerusalem, Ibn al-Qifṭī’s father fled to Ḥarran into the service of Ṣalāh al-Dīn’s son 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’’, or Dīwān of Finance, despite his own preference for study. On aẓ-Ẓāhir’s death in 613/1216 al-Qifti retired but was re-appointed in 633/1236 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 again resumed the office and held it up to his death in 646/1248.

Throughout his life al-Qifṭī advocated scholarship and sought to pursue a literary career despite heavy constraints of high office. When Yaqūt had fled 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. Yaqut lists al-Qifṭī's pre-620 works (some were then incomplete). 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

  • (abbrev.) History of the Illustrious (Ta'rikh al-Ḥukama); full title (Kitāb Ikhbār al-‘Ulamā’ bi Akhbār al-Ḥukamā); a biographic epitome 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.[5]
  • (Inbā ar-Rawat ‘alā 'Anbā an-Nuhat (3 vol.); synopsis (647/1249) by Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī az-Zawanī.[5][6]

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[7]
  • 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)[8]
  • 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)[9]
  • 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)
  • 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

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Professor Emmanuel Akyeampong; Mr. Steven J. Niven (2 February 2012). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
  2. 1 2 Thomas, David (24 Mar 2010). "Al-Qifti". Brill Reference. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  3. ↑ Bernard Lewis (15 April 2011). Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East. Open Court. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-8126-9757-5.
  4. ↑ Yaqūt, Mu’jam al-Buldān, iv p.152
  5. 1 2 Lippert, Ibn al-Qifṭīs Ta’rikh al-Ḥukamā, 1903
  6. ↑ ed. Abu 'l-Fadl Ibrahim
  7. ↑ MS. Paris arab. 3335
  8. ↑ al-Qifti ed. Shams-ad-Din, The Biographies and Books of the Great Philosophers
  9. ↑ 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 (26 ed.), iii (xlviii)
  • Abū 'l-Fadl Ibrāhīm, Muḥammad, ed. (1374) [1369], Inbah al-Ruwat 'ala Anbah al-Nuhat, iii, Cairo
  • al-Hamawi, Yāqūt, Margoliouth, ed., Irshād al-Arīb, 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, i, p. 319
  • Leclerc (ed.), Hist. de la méd. ar., 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.), 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., Leyden, i: 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, ii, Leyden
  • al-Kutubī (1951), Dietrich, A, ed., Fawat, ii, Cairo, pp. 191–3
  • Yaqut, Mu'jam al-Udaba', xv, Cairo, pp. 175–204
  • Yaqūt, Margoliouth, ed., Irshad, v, pp. 477–94
  • ibid, Mu'jam al-Buldan, 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, i, Cairo, p. 265
  • Ibn al-'Imad, Shadharat, v, p. 236
  • Adfawi (1333), al-Tali' as-Sa'id, Cairo, p. 237 f.
  • Ibn Taghribirdi (1355), Nujum, vi, Cairo, p. 361
  • Müller, A., ed. (1890), Actes du 8e Congres Internat. des Orientalistes (i), Leiden, pp. 15–36
  • Brockelmann, Carl (ed.), "S I", Ibn al-Ḳifṭī, I2 (396 f.), p. 559
  • Sellheim, R, ed. (1955), Oriens (viii), pp. 348–352

See also


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