Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Fadlallah al-Umari (Arabic: شهاب الدين أبو العبّاس أحمد بن فضل الله العمري, romanized: Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Faḍlallāh al-ʿUmarī), commonly known as Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari or Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-‘Umārī (1301 – 1349) was an Arab historian born in Damascus.[1] His major works include at-Taʾrīf bi-al-muṣṭalaḥ ash-sharīf, on the subject of the Mamluk administration, and Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār, an encyclopedic collection of related information.[1] The latter was translated into French by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes in 1927.

A student of Ibn Taymiyya,[2] Ibn Fadlallah visited Cairo shortly after the Malian Mansa Kankan Musa I's pilgrimage to Mecca, and his writings are one of the primary sources for this legendary hajj. He recorded that the Mansa dispensed so much gold that its value fell in Egypt for a decade afterward, a story that is often repeated in describing the wealth of the Mali Empire.[3]

He recorded Kankan Musa's stories of the previous mansa; Kankan Musa claimed that the previous ruler had abdicated the throne to journey to a land across the ocean, leading contemporary Malian historian Gaoussou Diawara to theorize that Abu Bakr II reached the Americas years before Christopher Columbus.[4]

Gaudefroy-Demombynes believed that al-Umari wrote the Masalik al-Absar between 1342 and 1349, but internal evidence suggests that at least the chapter on Egypt and Syria and the section covering the Mali Empire were written in 1337-1338.[5][6]

In March 1339, al-Umari was arrested following an altercation with the sultan, but al-Umari's father persuaded the sultan to spare him, and he was sentenced to house arrest. He subsequently had further conflict with the sultan and was imprisoned, but released in October. He subsequently moved to Damascus, and worked as a secretary there from August 1340 to May or June 1343.[5]

Works

  • Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-‘Umārī, Masālik al-abṣār, éd. Sayyid [7][8][9][10]

References

  1. 1 2 "Al-ʿUmarī - Syrian scholar". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  2. ↑ Mehdi Berriah (2020). "The Mamluk Sultanate and the Mamluks seen by Ibn Taymiyya: between Praise and Criticism". Arabian Humanities (14). doi:10.4000/cy.6491. ISSN 2308-6122. OCLC 8930826072. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  3. ↑ Kingdom of Mali Primary Sources, Boston University: African Studies Center. Accessed 1 November 2022.
  4. ↑ World map of the geographers of the Caliph Al-Maʼmūn (reigned 813-833 A.D.). Frankfurt: Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften. 1990. LCCN 91682448. OCLC 24107059. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  5. 1 2 Holt, P. M. (1987). "Ayman Fu'ad Sayyid: Masālik alabṣar fī Mamālik al-amsār d'Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-'Umarī Šihāb al-Din Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Faḍl Allāh, m. 749/1349. (Textes Arabes et Etudes Islamiques, Tom. xxiii.) x, 203 pp., 48 pp., 6 Plates. Le Caire: Institut Francais d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1958". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 50 (1): 136–137. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00053350. ISSN 1474-0699.
  6. ↑ Levtzion, N.; Hopkins, J. F. P. (2000). Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55876-241-1.
  7. ↑ "Masalik al-absar fi mamalik al-amsar: l'Egypte, la Syrie, le Higaz at le Yemen / Ibn Fadl Allah al-'Umari Ahmad ibn Yahya edite et presente par Ayman Fu'ad Sayyid" (in French). Cairo. 1885.
  8. ↑ Cited in: Vallet, Éric (16 October 2015). "Chapitre 3. Le fisc d'Aden, percepteur, acheteur et vendeur". L'Arabie Marchande. État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen (626-858/1229-1454). Bibliothèque historique des pays d’Islam (in French). Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne. p. 870. doi:10.4000/books.psorbonne.2441. ISBN 9782859448714. OCLC 960808924. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  9. ↑ Ibn Faḍl Allāh Al‑ʿUmarī, Masālik al‑abṣār fī mamālik al‑amṣār, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al‑Qādir Kharīsāt et al., al‑ʿAyn, Zayd Center for Heritage and History, 2001–2004, 25 vols. As cited in: Mehdi Berriah (2020). "The Mamluk Sultanate and the Mamluks seen by Ibn Taymiyya: between Praise and Criticism". Arabian Humanities (14). doi:10.4000/cy.6491. ISSN 2308-6122. OCLC 8930826072. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  10. ↑ D.S. Richards (6 January 2017). Egypt and Syria in the Early Mamluk Period: An Extract from Ibn Faḍl Allāh Al-'Umarī's Masālik Al-Abṣār Fī Mamālik Al-Amṣā. Taylor & Francis. p. 115. ISBN 9781315458809. OCLC 1257806554.
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