Yaqut al-Hamawi


Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period. He is known for his, an influential work on geography containing valuable information pertaining to biography, history and literature as well as geography.

Life

Yāqūt was the kunya of Ibn Abdullāh. He was born in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, called in Arabic al-Rūm, whence his nisba "al-Rūmi". Captured in war and enslaved, Yāqūt became "mawali" to ‘Askar ibn Abī Naṣr al-Ḥamawī, a trader of Baghdad, Iraq, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, from whom he received the laqab "al-Hamawī". As ‘Askar's apprentice, he learned about accounting and commerce, becoming his envoy on trade missions and travelling twice or three times to Kish in the Persian Gulf. In 1194, ‘Askar stopped his salary over some dispute and Yāqūt found work as copyist to support himself. He embarked on a course of study under the grammarian Al-‘Ukbarî. Five years later he was on another mission to Kish for ‘Askar. On his return to Baghdad he set up as a bookseller and began his writing career.
Yāqūt spent ten years travelling in Iran, Syria, and Egypt and his significance as a scholar lies in his testimony of the great, and largely lost, literary heritage found in libraries east of the Caspian Sea, being one of the last visitors before their destruction by Mongol [invasion of Central Asia|Mongol invaders]. He gained much material from the libraries of the ancient cities of Merv where he had studied for two yearsand of Balkh. Circa 1222, he was working on his "Geography" in Mosul and completed the first draft in 1224. In 1227 he was in Alexandria. From there he moved to Aleppo, where he died in 1229.

Works

  • Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān "Dictionary of Countries"; Classified a "literary geography", composed between 1224 and 1228, and completed a year before the author's death. An alphabetical index of place names from the literary corpus of the Arabs, vocalizations, their Arabic or foreign derivation and location. Yaqut supplements geographic descriptions with historical, ethnographic, and associated narrative material with historical sketches and accounts of Muslim conquests, names of governors, monuments, local celebrities etc., and preserves much valuable early literary, historical, biographic and geographic material of prose and poetry.
  • Kitāb Iršād al-arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb al-maʿrūf bi-muʿǧam al-udabāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-udabāʾ, hg. D. S. Margoliouth, Brill, Leyden 1907ff, , , , , , , .
  • Mu'jam al-Udabā, "Literary Encyclopedia, Expert Guide to Literature" ; .
  • ' ; 1846 edition by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld: Jacut's Moschtarik, das ist, Lexicon geographischer Homonyme, Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, 1846; reprinted, 1963, in .
  • *Alt:
  • Muʿǧam al-buldān . vol. I–VI. Ed. F. Wüstenfeld, Leipzig 1866–73; 1924. reprint Tehran 1965; Beirut 1955–1957; Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-8298-1197-7 .
  • Lexicon geographicum, cui titulus est, Marâsid al ittilâ’ ‘ala asmâ’ al-amkina wa-l-biqâ’, 6 vols, edited by T.G. Juynboll, 185264; as Marasid al-ittila’ ‘ala asma’ al-amkina wa-al-biqa’: wa-huwa mukhtasar mu’jam al-buldan li-Yaqut, 3 vols, edited by ‘Ali Muhammad al-Bajjawi, 1992
  • Yāqūt Ibn ʻAbdallāh ar-Rūmī; ed. Theodor Juynboll; '; Vol.4, p. 729; Leiden, Brill

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