Abulfeda

Abu'l-Fida was born in Damascus,Chambers Biographical Dictionary, {{ISBN|0-550-18022-2}}, page 5 where his father Malik ul-Afdal, brother of Emir Al-Mansur Muhammad II of Hama, had fled from the Mongols. Abu'l-Fida was an Ayyubid prince of Kurdish origin.{{cite book |title=The Moslem World |date=1922 |publisher=Nile Mission Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5A1R_wSUtTYC&dq=abu%27l+fida+kurdish&pg=RA1-PA96 |access-date=5 December 2022 |language=en}}

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.{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Abulfeda|volume=1|page=80}}

In 1285 he was present at the attack on 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.

He died in 1331.

Taqwim al-Buldan ("A Sketch of the Countries") 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. In his works Abu'l-Fida correctly mentions the latitude and longitude of the city of Quanzhou in China.{{Google books |id=7PbG1H_-h0cC |page=211 |title=The Travels of Ibn Batūta: With Notes, Illustrative of the History }}

The book also contains the first known explanation of the circumnavigator's paradox. Abu'l-Fida wrote that a person who completed a westward circumnavigation of the world would count one fewer day than a stationary observer, since he was traveling in the same direction as the apparent motion of the sun in the sky. A person traveling eastward would count one more day than a stationary observer.{{cite book |last1=Gunn |first1=Geoffrey C. |title=Overcoming Ptolemy: The Revelation of an Asian World Region |date=15 October 2018 |publisher=Lexington Books |location=Lanham, Maryland |isbn=9781498590143 |pages=47–48}} This phenomenon was confirmed two centuries later, when the Magellan–Elcano expedition (1519–1522) completed the first circumnavigation. After sailing westward around the world from Spain, the expedition called at Cape Verde for supplies on Wednesday, 9 July 1522 (ship's time). However, the locals told them that it was actually Thursday, 10 July 1522.{{cite book |last1=Winfree |first1=Arthur T. |title=The Geometry of Biological Time |edition=2nd |date=2001 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4757-3484-3 |page=10 |language=en}}

His Concise History of Humanity ({{langx|ar|المختصر في أخبار البشر }} Tarikh al-Mukhtasar fi Akhbar al-Bashar, also An Abridgment of the History at the Human Race, or History of Abu al-Fida تاريخ أبى الفداء) was written between 1315 and 1329 as a continuation of The Complete History by Ali ibn al-Athir (c. 1231). It is in the form of annals extending from the creation of the world to the year 1329.Helaine Selin, Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Westen Cultures (1997), p. 7.

It is divided into two parts, one covering the history of pre-Islamic Arabia and the other the history of Islam until 1329. It was kept up to date by other Arab historians, by Ibn al-Wardi until 1348, and by Ibn al-Shihna until 1403. It was translated into Latin,Henricus Orthobius Fleischer, Abulfedae historia anteislamica, arabice: E duobus codicibus bibliothecae regiae Parisiensis, 101 et 615, F.C.W. Vogel (1831). French and English and was the main work of Muslim historiography used by 18th-century orientalists including Jean Gagnier (1670–1740) and Johann Jakob Reiske (1754).

• List of Muslim historians
• Abulfeda, a crater on the Moon which was named after him

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book | last=Gibb | first=H. A. R. | author-link=Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb | date=1986 | chapter=Abu'l Fidā | chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/EncyclopaediaDictionaryIslamMuslimWorldEtcGibbKramerScholars.13/01.EncycIslam.NewEdPrepNumLeadOrient.EdEdComCon.Gibb.Kramersetc.UndPatIUA.v1.A-B.PhotRepr.Leid.EJBrill.1960.1986.#page/n136/mode/1up | title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam |volume=1: A–B | place=Leiden, The Netherlands | publisher=Brill | pages=118–119}}
• 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 {{in lang|fr}}, 2nd ed. E.J. Brill, Leiden and G.P. Maisonneuve, Paris, 1960.

• {{cite book | last=de Slane | first=Baron | author-link=William McGuckin de Slane | date=1872 | chapter=Autobiographie d'Abou 'L-Fedā: Extraite de sa chronicle | title=Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Orientaux. | volume=1 | publisher=Imprimerie Nationale | place=Paris | pages=166–186, 745–751 | language=fr | chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/recueildeshistor01acad#page/166/mode/1up }}

• {{cite encyclopedia | last = Vernet | first = J. | title=Abu'l-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl Ibn ʿAlī Ibn Maḥmūd Ibn ... Ayyūb, ʿImād Al-Dīn| encyclopedia = Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | publisher = Encyclopedia.com | orig-year=1970–80 | date = 2008|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830900027.html }}
• [https://archive.org/details/abulfedaetabula00alfgoog Abulfedae tabulae quaedam geographicae, nunc primum Arab. ed., Lat. vertit, notis illustr. H.F ... (1835)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20020706072646/http://www.salaam.co.uk/knowledge/biography/viewentry.php?id=153 Abul Fida Ismail Ibn Hamwi] at the Salaam Biographical Dictionary
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060613024309/http://www.renaissance.com.pk/myletfor95.html Tabari]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140202235518/http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?TaxonomyTypeID=25&TaxonomySubTypeID=-1&TaxonomyThirdLevelID=-1&ArticleID=505 The Scholars of Hama]

{{Ayyubid dynasty}}

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Category:1273 births

Category:1331 deaths

Category:13th-century Kurdish people

Category:14th-century Kurdish people

Category:14th-century Arabic-language writers

Category:14th-century geographers

Category:14th-century Ayyubid rulers

Category:14th-century Syrian historians

Category:Ayyubid emirs of Hama

Category:Geographers of the medieval Islamic world

Category:Kurdish scientists

Category:Kurdish historians

Category:Kurdish geographers

Category:Kurdish scholars

Category:Historians from the Mamluk Sultanate

Category:Writers from Damascus