Majd ad-Dīn Ibn Athir

Majd ad-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr ash-Shaybānī^[1] (1149–1210)^[2] (Arabic: مجد الدين أبو السعادات المبارك بن محمد بن محمد بن محمد بن عبد الكريم الشيباني الجزري بن الأثير) was an historian, biographer and lexicographer.^[3] His full name was Abū l-Saʿādāt al-Mubārak b. Muḥammad (al-Athīr) b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Shaybānī al-Jazarī al-Mawṣilī.^[1][4] Majd ad-Dīn was one of three brothers from a wealthy family of scholars, all known as Ibn al-Athīr of Jazirat Ibn ‘Umar and Mosul. The other two being Ali ibn al-Athir and Diyā' ad-Dīn, who was also an historian. The father Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Karim was an official of the Zangid government. Majd al-Dīn was in the service of the emir of Mosul, Ghāzi b. Mawdūd, and later Mas‘ūd b. Mawdūd and Arslan Shāh. Although he became paralysed he continued working and outlived his two brothers. He was a distinguished translator of the Arabic language. The Ibn al-Athīr family were Arab, or Kurdish, of the Shayban lineage^[5] of the large and influential Arab tribe Banu Bakr,^[6][7] who lived across upper Mesopotamia, and gave their name to the city of Diyar Bakr.^[8][9]

Majd ad-Dīn Ibn Athir
Emir of Mosul
Personal details
Born	1149 Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar, Turkey
Died	1210 Mosul
Relatives	Ali ibn al-Athir Diyā' ad-Dīn

Works[10]

• Al-Nihāya fi gharib al-ḥadīth; compiled in 1322. (Cairo, 1893, 1963-65); dictionary of rare words from the ḥadīth and their meanings. The great thirteenth-century lexicographer Ibn Manzur cited this and other works among the sources for his famous dictionary Lisān al-‘Arab.^[11]
• Kitāb al-Banīn wa-'l-banāt wa 'l-ābā’ wa 'l-ummahāt wa 'l-adhwā’

—a.k.a. Kitāb al-Muraṣṣa, on family names, (ed., C Ferdinand Seybold, Weimar, 1896.)

• Al-Mukhtār fī manāqib al-akhyār
• Rasā’il; collection of epistles. (ed., Brockelmann)
• Jāmi‘ al-uṣūl; (Helmut Ritter, Oriens, vi, 1953)
• Lost works on naḥw (grammar), tafsīr (Qur’ānic exegesis), and other subjects.

References

1. Aerts, Stijn. "Ibn al-Athīr, Majd al-Dīn". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30719. ISSN 1873-9830. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
2. "Today in Islamic History (30th of Zil-Hijjah)". Radio Islam. November 15, 2012. Archived from the original on July 2, 2013. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
3. Gunter, Michael M. (January 22, 2009). "The A to Z of the Kurds". Kurdish historian and biographer Ibn al-Athir wrote in Arabic... Scarecrow Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-8108-6334-7.
4. Rosenthal, F. (1986). "Ibn al-Athīr". In Lewis, B; Ménage, V. L.; Pellat, Charles (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (New ed.). Leiden: Brill.
5. Fahimi Kamaruzaman, Azmul; Jamaludin, Norsaeidah; Faathin Mohd Fadzil, Ahmad (2015-09-17). "Ibn Al-Athir's Philosophy of History in Al-Kamil Fi Al-Tarikh". Asian Social Science. 11 (23). Canadian Center of Science and Education. doi:10.5539/ass.v11n23p28. ISSN 1911-2025.
6. Kazhdan, Alexander P. 1991. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ibn al-athir.
7. Donner, Fred McGraw (1980). "The Bakr B. Wā'il Tribes and Politics in Northeastern Arabia on the Eve of Islam". Studia Islamica (51). [Brill, Maisonneuve & Larose]: 5–38. doi:10.2307/1595370. ISSN 0585-5292. JSTOR 1595370.
8. Trudy Ring, Noelle Watson, Paul Schellinger. 1995. International Dictionary of Historic Places. Vol. 3 Southern Europe. Routledge. P 190.
9. Canard, M., Cahen, Cl., Yinanç, Mükrimin H., and Sourdel-Thomine, J. ‘Diyār Bakr’. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Ed. P. Bearman et al. Brill Reference Online. Web. 16 Nov. 2019. Accessed on 16 November 2019.
10. Rosenthal 1986, pp. 724–5, Enc. Islām., III..
11. Ibn Athir, Majd ad-Dīn (1843). Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary. Vol. 1. Translated by De Slane, Bn. Mac Guckin. p. 551.