Ibn 'Idhari Explained

Ibn 'Idhari
Birth Date:Late 13th century
Birth Place:Marrakech, Morocco
Death Date:After 1312 CE
Occupation:Historian, Qāʾid (commander)
Notable Works:Al-Bayan al-Mughrib
Era:Medieval Islamic period
Main Interests:History of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus

Abū al-ʽAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʽIḏārī al-Marrākushī (Arabic: أبو العباس أحمد ابن عذاري المراكشي) was a Maghrebi historian of the late-13th/early-14th century, and author of the famous Al-Bayan al-Mughrib,[1] an important medieval history of the Maghreb (Morocco, North Africa) and Al-Andalus (now the Iberian Peninsula) written in 1312.[2]

Ibn Idhāri was born and lived in Marrakech (present-day Morocco), and was a qāʾid ('commander') of Fez. Little is known of his life. His only surviving work, Al-Bayan al-Mughrib, is a history of North Africa from the conquest of Miṣr in 640/1 AD to the Almohad conquests in 1205/6 AD.[3] Its value to modern scholarship lies in its extracts from older works, now lost, and in its material not found elsewhere, including reports of the first Viking raids on Al-Andalus in the ninth century.[4] He mentions another biographic work on the caliphs, imāms and amīrs from across the Islamic world, which has not survived. He died after 1312 / 712 AH.

References

Notes and References

  1. Book: Ibn Athari, Abu al-Abbas. Ibn Idhari. Kitāb al-bayān al-mughrib fī akhbār al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib. Tunis. Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī. 2013. 4. ar.
  2. This is the form of the name given by Dozy, Colin and Levi-Provençal, editors of the Arabic text of the Bayān, but Siraj (work cited below) gives his kunya and ism as Abū Abd Allah Muhammad
  3. Encyclopedia: Ibn 'Idhari . Encyclopedia of Islam . Bosch-Vilá . J . Jacinto Bosch Vilá. 1971. 1979 . E. J. Brill . Leiden . 90-04-08118-6.
  4. Book: Christys . Ann . Vikings in the South . 2015 . Bloomsbury . 9781474213752 . 2.