Ibn Asakir
Encyclopedia
Name
His full name was Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Hibat Allah ibn `Abd Allah, Thiqat al-Din, Abu al-Qasim, known as Ibn `Asakir al-Dimashqi al-Shafi`i al-Ash`ari.Works
- History of Damascus (Arabic: Tarikh Dimashiq) is one of most important books about the Islamic history of SyriaSyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, covering the life of important figures who resided in or visited DamascusDamascusDamascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
. That is not limited to the assessment of narrators of hadith, Ilm ar-RijalIlm ar-RijalBiographical evaluation, , literally: "knowledge of men", refers to a discipline of Islamic religious studies within hadith terminology in which the narrators of hadith are evaluated. Its goal is to distinguish authentic hadith from hadith unacceptable in establishing sanctioned religious...
, but also includes historical and political figures. When it comes to Islamic figures, Ibn Asakir tried to collect everything that has been said about that figure, true or false, with full chain of narration. It also contains a huge collection of Arabic poems. It was printed recently in seventy two volumes.