Kamāl al-Dīn Abū ʾl-Ḳāsim ʿUmar ibn Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh Ibn al-ʿAdīm (1192–1262;
Arabic: كمال الدين عمر بن أحمد ابن العديم) was an
Arab[1] biographer and historian from
Aleppo.[2] He is best known for his work Bughyat al-Talab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (بغية الطلب في تاريخ حلب; Everything Desirable about the History of Aleppo), a multi-volume collection of biographies of famous men from Aleppo, introduced with a volume on the geography and traditions of the region. It is saved in part in manuscripts in the library of sultan
Ahmed III in
Topkapi Palace. He also published a chronicle version of the work, Zubdat al-Halab fi ta'arikh Halab (زبدة الحلب في تأريخ حلب; The Cream of the History of Aleppo), a copy of which reached the library of
Jean-Baptiste Colbert and then the
Bibliothèque nationale de France,[3] and selections of which were published with Latin translation by
Georg Freytag in 1819. His historical sources are various, some oral and some written, and two of the more famous are
Usama ibn Munqidh and
Ibn al-Qalanisi (Lewis 1952). Another work is a guide for the making of perfumes, Kitab al-Wuslat (or Wasilat) ila al-Habib fi Wasf al-Tayibat wal-tibb (الوصلة إلى الحبيب في وصف الطيّبات والطيب) (Houtsma 1927). He is an important source of knowledge on the Syrian
Assassins, first analyzed by
Silvester de Sacy (Lewis 1952).
Numerous
Ayyubid rulers entrusted Ibn al-Adim as a diplomatic ambassador. On his last mission in 1260, he was sent to Egypt seeking military assistance against the Mongols.[4]
Notes
^John Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee, (Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1992), 342.
^Farhad Daftary, The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines, (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 309.
Kamāl al-Dīn (1896):
Histoire d'Alep, in Revue de l'Orient Latin
Kamāl al-Dīn ʻUmar ibn Aḥmad Ibn al-ʻAdīm, Edgar Blochet (1900):
Histoire d'Alep
Houtsma, M. Th., ed. E. J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913-1936, BRILL,
ISBN978-90-04-08265-6
Ibn al-'Adîm, Bughyat al-talab fî târîkh Halab / Everything desirable about the History of Aleppo. Set of 11 volumes: I-X. ed. F. Sezgin; XI. Register of Biographies, compiled by David W. Morray. 1986-1990.
ISBN3-8298-0236-6
Lewis, Bernard, "The Sources for the History of the Syrian Assassins", Speculum Vol. 27, No. 4 (Oct., 1952), pp. 475–489
Morray, David W., An Ayyubid Notable and his World: Ibn al-'Adim and Aleppo as Portrayed in His Biographical Dictionary of People Associated with the City, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994