Abul Fida
Abul Fida (1273 – 1331) or Abu al-Fida (Arabic: أبو الفداء) was a Kurdish historian, geographer, and local governor of Hamāh. He was a prince of the Ayyubid dynasty and the author of The memoirs of a Syrian prince: Abu'l-Fidāʼ, Sultan of Ḥamāh. The crater Abulfeda on the Moon, is named after him.
Full name
Abul-Fida' al-Ḥamawi or Abul Fida Ismail Hamvi (fully Abu Al-fida' Isma'il Ibn 'ali ibn Mahmud Al-malik Al-mu'ayyad 'imad Ad-din, (also transliterated Abulfeda, Abu Alfida, and other ways)) (November 1273 – October 27, 1331)
His life
Abu'l-Fida was born in Damascus,[1] where his father Malik ul-Afdal, brother of emir Al-Mansur Muhammad II of Hama, had fled from the Mongols.
In his boyhood he devoted himself to the study of the Qur'an and the sciences, but from his twelfth year onward, he was almost constantly engaged in military expeditions, chiefly against the crusaders.
In 1285 he was present at the assault of a stronghold of the Knights of St. John, and took part in the sieges of Tripoli, Acre and Qal'at ar-Rum. In 1298 he entered the service of the Mamluk Sultan Malik al-Nasir and after twelve years was invested by him with the governorship of Hama. In 1312 he became prince with the title Malik us-Salhn, and in 1320 received the hereditary rank of sultan with the title Malik ul-Mu'ayyad.
For more than twenty years all together he reigned in tranquillity and splendour, devoting himself to the duties of government and to the composition of the works to which he is chiefly indebted for his fame. He was a munificent patron of men of letters, who came in large numbers to his court. He died in 1331.
Jat History
Prof. Abdul Ali[2] mentions that The Jats are described in the book Lisan al- 'Arab by Ibn Manzur as a dark-complexioned people of India.[3] As described by the renowned Arab historian Abul Fida, the Balochs settled in Baluchistan were also cailed Jats, and their language was very similar to the language spoken in India.[4] According to Ibn Khurdadhbih, the entire region between Makran and Mansurah measuring several hundred miles was the exclusive area of the Jats. Large segments of Jat population have been mentioned in Khuzistan, Baluchistan and Kabul also.[5] It is said that the renowned Muslim scholar Imam Abu Hanifah (d. 767 AD) was born in Kabul.[6] The Jats had also settled in large numbers in the fertile region of tne Arabian/Persian Gulf extending from Ubullah near Basra to Bahrain and Oman where they mostly tended cattle including goats, sheep, camels, etc. Some Jats had also permanently settled in the coastal regions of the Gulf. Most of them were recruited as sodiers in the Sasanid army, in the course of which they lived in different territories of Iran and Arabia, particularly the region of Ubullah in Iraq and Yemen of southern Arabia. Likewise, they had there important settlements in Khuzistan also which had developed into great cities. They were known as Humat al-Zutt (area of the Jats) and Khabiran. Both were situated along the banks of two rivers.[7]
His Works
In his works Abu'l-Fida correctly mentions the latitude and longtitude of the city of Quanzhou in China.
- The Concise History of Humanity or Chronicles (Arabic: المختصر في أخبار البشر - تاريخ أبى الفداء) (History of Abu al-Fida, his chief historical work is An Abridgment of the History at the Human Race, in the form of annals extending from the creation of the world to the year 1329 (Constantinople, 2 vols. 1869). His Geography is, like much of the history, founded on the works of his predecessors, including the works of Ptolemy and Muhammad al-Idrisi. A long introduction on various geographical matters is followed by twenty-eight sections dealing in tabular form with the chief towns of the world. After each name are given the longitude, latitude, climate, spelling, and then observations generally taken from earlier authors. Parts of the work were published and translated as early as 1650 in Europe.
- A Sketch of the Countries (Arabic: تقويم البلدان)
- A book about medicine named Kunash (Arabic: الكُنّاش)
- Abu'l-Fida Mosque
Books
- Studies on Abul-Fida' al-Ḥamawi (1273-1331 A.D.) by Farid Ibn Faghül, Carl Ehrig-Eggert, E. Neubauer. Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science (Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften) at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1992.
- Encyclopedie de l'Islam, 2nd ed. E.J. Brill, Leiden and G.P. Maisonneuve, Paris, 1960. (French)
References
- ↑ Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 5
- ↑ The Jats, Vol. 2: Socio-Political and Military Role of Jats in West Asia as Gleaned from Arabic Sources,pp.9-10
- ↑ Ibn Manzur, Lisan al-'Arab, Vol. VII, p. 307.
- ↑ Abdul Malik Bin Hisham, Kitab al-Tijan (Hyderabad edition), p. 222.
- ↑ Abdul Malik Bin Hisham, Kitab al-Tijan (Hyderabad edition), p. 223
- ↑ Tarikh lbn Khaldun, Vol. n, p. 294.
- ↑ Istakhri, al-Mamalik w-ai-Masaiik, p. 94.
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