Al-Qifti

'Alī al-Qifṭī, known as Ibn al-Qifṭī, was a native of Qift, Upper Egypt, the son of al-Qāḍī al-Ashraf, Yūsuf al-Qifṭī (b.548/1153), and the grandson of Ibrāhīm ibn 'Abd al-Wāḥid, al-Qāḍī al-Awḥad in the Ayyūbid court. Alī succeeded his father and grandfather into court administration but displayed scholarly inclinations. When the family left Qift in 1177, following the rising of a Fāṭimid Pretender, his father, Yūsuf, took up official posts in Upper Egypt and 'Alī completed his early education in Cairo.

In 583/1187 Yūsuf al-Qifṭī was appointed deputy to al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, chancellor and adviser to Ṣalāh al-Dīn at Jerusalem, and patron and benefactor of Maimonides,{{cite book|author=Bernard Lewis|title=Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h5tjQSU4Ex0C&pg=PA175|date=15 April 2011|publisher=Open Court|isbn=978-0-8126-9757-5|page=175}} Al-Qifṭī spent many years studying and collecting material for his later works. When Ṣalāh al-Dīn died in 598/1201 and his brother, Malik al-'Ādil, usurped his nephew's position to occupy Jerusalem, Ibn al-Qifṭī's father fled to Ḥarran into the service of Ṣalāh al-Dīn's son Ashraf. Ibn al-Qifṭī sought patronage in Aleppo as secretary to the former governor of Jerusalem and Nablus, Fāris al-Din Maimūn al Qaṣrī, the then vizier to the Ayyubid emir Ṣalāh al-Dīn's third son, Malik aẓ-Ẓāhir Ghāzi. He was recognised as an effective administrator of the fiefs and when the vizier died in 610/1214 aẓ-Ẓāhir appointed him khāzin of the Dīwān of Finance, despite his own preference for study. On aẓ-Ẓāhir's death in 613/1216 al-Qifti retired but was re-appointed three years later by aẓ-Ẓāhir's successor. He remained in office until 628/1231. According to his protégé and biographer, Yaqūt, writing before 624/1227Yaqūt, Mu'jam al-Buldān, iv p.152 al-Qifti already held the honorific title "al-Qāḍī 'l-Akram al-Wazir" (most noble judge chief minister). After a five-year sabbatical al-Qifṭī took up the office of vizier in 633/1236 and held it up to his death in 646/1248.{{sfn|Dietrich|1971}} During that time he was also a member, along with Shams al-Din Lu'lu' al-Amini, of the regency council that governed on behalf of an-Nasir Yusuf.{{sfn|Humphreys|1977|p=229}}

Throughout his life al-Qifṭī advocated scholarship and sought to pursue a literary career despite heavy constraints of high office. When Yaqūt had fled the Mongol invasion to Aleppo, he had received shelter from al-Qifti, who had assisted him in the compilation of his great geographical and biographical encyclopedia, known as Irshad. Yaqut lists al-Qifṭī's pre-620 works (some were then incomplete). Al-Ṣafadī copied this list in his Wāfī fi 'l-Wafayāt and Al-Kutubī's Fawāt al-Wafayat (1196) borrowed from it, but his copy is corrupted by many errors.

Al-Qifṭī wrote mainly historical works and of 26 recorded titles just two survive. Most were destroyed during the Mongol invasion.{{Cite NIE |wstitle= Kifti |volume= XI | page=487 |short=1}}

• Kitāb Ikhbār al-'Ulamā' bi Akhbār al-Ḥukamā ({{lang|ar|إخبار العلماء بأخبار الحكماء}}); abbrev. Ta'rikh al-Ḥukama ({{lang|ar|تاريخ الحكماء}}), 'The biographies and the books of the great philosophers'; a biographical dictionary of 414 physicians, philosophers and astronomers; the most important source of exact sciences and Hellenistic tradition in Islām and sole literary witness of many accounts by ancient Greek scholars.Lippert, Ibn al-Qifṭīs Ta'rikh al-Ḥukamā, 1903{{cite book|last=Al-Qifṭī|first='Alī ibn Yūsuf|title=Ikhbār al-'Ulamā' bi-akhbār al-ḥukamā' (tr. The biographies and the books of the great philosophers)|editor-last=Shams al-Dīn|editor-first=Ibrāhīm |place=Lebanon |publisher=Dar al-kotob al-Ilmiyah |year=2005|edition=1st|page=328|language=ar |url=https://archive.org/details/FP89533/page/n2 }}
• Inbā ar-Rawat 'alā 'Anbā an-Nuhat (3 vol.); synopsis (647/1249) by Muḥammad ibn 'Alī az-Zawanī.ed. Abu 'l-Fadl Ibrahim

• Precious Pearls of the Account of the Master (Ad-Dur ath-Thamin fi 'Akhbar al-Mutīmīn) ({{lang|ar|الدر الثمين في أخبار المتيمين}})
• Report of the Muhammad Poets, (Akhbar al-Muhammadin min al-Shuara), (posthumous); only fragmentsMS. Paris arab. 3335
• History of Maḥmūd b. Sübüktigin (Sabuktakin) and His Sons'(wabanīhi, in al-Kubutī wabakīyat)
• History of the Seljuks, from the Beginning to the End of the Dynasty (Baqiat Tārīkh as-Siljūqīa) ({{lang|ar|بقية تاريخ السلجوقية}})
• Apostles of Poets; arranged by al-Aba' up to Muḥammad bin Sa'īd; posthumous work written by al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham; History of the Poets; only poets named Muḥammad extant) (Kitāb al-Muhmidīn min ash-Shu'ra'i; ratibah 'alā al-Ābā' wa balagh bīhī Muḥammad bin Sa'id.) ({{lang|ar|كتاب المحمدين من الشعراء. رتبه على الآباء وبلغ به محمد بن سعيد}}) (wa Katab 'an al-Hasan bin al-Haythm) ({{lang|ar|وكتب عن الحسن بن الهيثم}})
• History of the Mirdasids (Akhbar al-Mirdas) ({{lang|ar|أخبار آلمرداس}})
• The Biographies and Books of the Great Philosophers (Akhbar al-Alama bi Akhyar al-Hukama)({{lang|ar|إخبار العلماء بأخيار الحكماء}})[https://archive.org/stream/FP89533/89533 al-Qifti ed. Shams-ad-Din, The Biographies and Books of the Great Philosophers]
• Account of the Grammarians (Akhbar an-Nahwiyyin) ({{lang|ar|إخبار النحوين}}); survives only in abstract by Muh. b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi.
• Account of the Writers and their Writings (Akhbar al-Musanafin wa ma Sanafuh) ({{lang|ar|أخبار المصنفين وما صنفوه}})ed. De Goeje &. Juynboll
• History of the Yemen (Tarikh al-Yemen) ({{lang|ar|تاريخ اليمن}})
• Egypt; in six parts ('Akhbār Misr, fi sitta 'Ajza') ({{lang|ar|أخبار مصر، في ستة أجزاء}}):: including
• History of Cairo until the reign of Salah al-Din; identical to Comprehensive Tarikh al-Qifti contained in the epitome of Ibn Maktum (d. 749/1348){{citation needed|date=September 2018}}
• History of the Buyids
• History of the Maghreb
• Correction of Errors by al-Jawhari (Islāh Khilal as-Sahāhi, lil-Jawhrī) ({{lang|ar|إصلاح خلل الصحاح، للجوهري،}})
• Nahza al-Khater in Literature (Nahazat al-Khāṭr >> fi-l-Adab) ({{lang|ar|نهزة الخاطر» في الأدب}}); History of Scholarship (the Shaykhs of al-Kindi), a supplement to the Ansab of al-Baladhuri, etc.
• Biographies of Ibn Rashiq, Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi

• Muslim historiography

Citations

{{Reflist|30em}}

Bibliography

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{{refend}}

{{NIE Poster|Kifti|Al-Qifti}}

• [http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/?p=5004 English translation of a portion of Al-Qifti's Tarikh al-hukama] - dealing with the destruction of the library of Alexandria.

{{Arabic historians}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Qifti}}

Category:1170s births

Category:1248 deaths

Category:12th-century Muslims

Category:13th-century biographers

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Category:Egyptian historians of Islam

Category:Egyptian biographers

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Category:Encyclopedists of the medieval Islamic world

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Category:Historians from the Ayyubid Sultanate

Category:Viziers in the medieval Islamic world