Kamāl al-Dīn Abū ʾl-Ḳāsim ʿUmar ibn Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh Ibn al-ʿAdīm (; 1192–1262) was an ArabJohn Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee, (Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1992), 342. biographer and historian from Aleppo.Farhad Daftary, The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines, (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 309. He is best known for his works on the history of Aleppo. He is an important source of knowledge on the Syrian Order of Assassins, first analyzed by Silvester de Sacy (Lewis 1952).
Career Ibn al-ʿAdīm got his early education from Aleppo, Damascus and Mecca, and became a teacher at al-Shadbakhtiyah Madrasa in 1220. He was later appointed qadi of Aleppo. Numerous Ayyubid rulers entrusted Ibn al-ʿAdīm as a diplomatic ambassador. On his last mission in 1260, he was sent to Egypt seeking military assistance against the Mongols.Ibn al-Adim, David Morray, Medieval Islamic Civilization:An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, ed. Josef W. Meri, (Routledge, 2006), 342.
Works The best known work of Ibn al-ʿAdīm is Bughyat al-Talab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (; 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 (; 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, 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 () (Houtsma 1927).
Notes
References Freytag, G. Selecta ex historia Halebi Paris: Typographia Regia, 1819. 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, 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. 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