Ibn Abd al-Zahir

Ibn Abd al-Zahir (Muḥyī d-Dīn ibn ʿAbd aẓ-Ẓāhir محيي الدين بن عبد الظاهر, 1223–1293) was an Egyptian chancery scribe, poet and historian during the Mamluk period. Several of his works survive, including three biographies of the early Mamluk sultans Baibars, Al-Mansur Qalawun and Al-Ashraf Khalil. In addition, a diwan of his poetry survives, as does a collection of letters written by Saladin's vizier al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil which he compiled, and parts of a geographical work entitled Kitāb al-Rawḍah al-Bahīyah which was used extensively by the later historian Al-Maqrizi for his work "Al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʾtibār bi-dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa al-athār." His son Fath al-Din Ibn Abd al-Zahir and grandson Ala al-Din Ibn Abd al-Zahir were also important chancery scribes of the Mamluk period, as was his nephew Shafiʾ ibn ʾAli who also wrote three surviving biographies of sultans Baibars, Qalawun and An-Nasir Muhammad.

Writings

• al-Rawḍ al-zāhir fī sīrat al-Malik al-Ẓāhir (ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Khuwayṭir, Riyadh, 1976; partial English translation in Baybars I of Egypt, ed. Syedah Fatima Sadequi, London, 1958))
• Tashrīf al-ayyām wa-l-ʿuṣūr bi-sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr (ed. Murad Kāmil, Cairo, 1961)
• al-Alṭāf al-khafiyya min al-sīra al-sharīfa al-sulṭāniyya al-Malikiyya al-Ashrafiyya, published in Ur ʿAbd Allah B. ʿAbd eẓ-Ẓâhir’s biografi over sultanen el-malik al-Aśraf Halîl (ed. Axel Moberg, Lund, 1902)
• Al-Durr an-naẓīm min tarassul ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (ed. Aḥmad Aḥmad Badawī, Cairo, 1959)
• al-Rawḍa l-bahiyya al-zāhira fī khiṭaṭ al-Muʿizziyya l-Qāhira"" (ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Cairo, 1996).
• Dīwān: Dirāsa wa-taḥqīq (ed. Gharīb Muḥammad ʿAlī Aḥmad, Cairo, 1990)

References

• Bauden, F., "Ibn ʾAbd al-Ẓāhir" Encyclopaedia of Islam III (2017)
• Pedersen, J., "Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir" Encyclopaedia of Islam II (1972), 679–680.
• Amitai, Reuven, "Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir, Muḥyī al-Dīn (1223-1292)." A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing. ed. Woolf, D. R., New York and London: Garland Publishing, (1998) 435f.
• Richards, D. S., "Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir (620-92/1223-92)." Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Routledge (1998), p. 303.
• Strauẞ, E., "Muḥyîʾddîn b. ʿAbdaẓẓâhir." Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 45, (1938), 191-202.

External links

• Manuscript of Ibn Abd al-Zahir's biography of Qalawun
• Manuscript of Ibn Abd al-Zahir's biography of al-Ashraf Khalil