Ibn Khallikan
Encyclopedia
Shams al-Dīn Abū Al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Khallikān (September 22, 1211 – October 30, 1282) was a 13th Century Shafi'i
Shafi'i
The Shafi'i madhhab is one of the schools of fiqh, or religious law, within the Sunni branch of Islam. The Shafi'i school of fiqh is named after Imām ash-Shafi'i.-Principles:...

 Islamic scholar of Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...

 origin.

Biography

Ibn Khallikan was born in Arbil, Iraq on September 22, 1211, studied there and in Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

 and Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , 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...

. He also studied jurisprudence
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

 at Mosul
Mosul
Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...

 and then settled in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. He gained prominence as a jurist, theologian and grammarian. Ibn Khallikan married in the year 1252.

He was an assistant to the chief judge in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 until 1261 when he assumed the position of chief judge in Damascus. Ibn Khallikan was removed from this position in 1271, returned to Egypt and taught there until being reinstated as judge in Damascus in the year 1278. He retired from this position in 1281 and died in Damascus on October 30, 1282.

Works

Ibn Khallikan's most renowned work is the biographical dictionary entitled Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān (Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch). He began compiling this work in 1256 and continued until 1274, referencing the works of earlier scholars. Deaths of Eminent Men does not include biographies of individuals already sufficiently covered, such as the Islamic Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 and the caliphs. This work has been translated into English by William McGuckin de Slane
William McGuckin de Slane
William McGuckin , known as Baron de Slane was a nineteenth-century Irish orientalist, student of Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, , a teacher also of Jean François Champollion, who was given the French nationality since 31 December 1838,...

, (1801–1878), and is over 2,700 pages long.
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