ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his
nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
geographer and perhaps the first historian of world culture in the
Abbasid Caliphate.
Life
He was born in
Baghdad as the great-grandson of Wadih, the freedman of the
caliph Al-Mansur. Until 873 he lived in
Armenia and
Khorasan
Khorasan may refer to:
* Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
* Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
, working under the patronage of the
Tahirids
The Tahirid dynasty ( fa, طاهریان, Tâheriyân, ) was a culturally Arabized Sunni Muslim dynasty of Persian dehqan origin, that ruled as governors of Khorasan from 821 to 873 as well as serving as military and security commanders in Ab ...
Governors; then he traveled to India, Egypt and the
Maghreb,
and died in Egypt. He died in
AH 284 (897/8).
His sympathies with
Ahl al-Bayt
Ahl al-Bayt ( ar, أَهْل ٱلْبَيْت, ) refers to the family of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, but the term has also been extended in Sunni Islam to apply to all descendants of the Banu Hashim (Muhammad's clan) and even to all Muslims. ...
are found throughout his works.
In 872, he lists the kingdoms of
Bilād as-Sūdān, including
Ghana,
Gao
Gao , or Gawgaw/Kawkaw, is a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region. The city is located on the River Niger, east-southeast of Timbuktu on the left bank at the junction with the Tilemsi valley.
For much of its history Gao was an impor ...
, and
Kanem.
Works
* ''
Ta'rikh ibn Wadih'' (''Chronicle of Ibn Wadih'')
* ''
Kitab al-Buldan'' (''Book of the Countries'') - biology, contains a description of the
Maghreb, with a full account of the larger cities and much topographical and political information (ed.
M. de Goeje, Leiden, 1892).
Editions
*
*
Notes
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yaqubi
9th-century births
897 deaths
Iraqi Shia Muslims
Arab Muslim historians of Islam
9th-century Arabic writers
9th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate
9th-century geographers
10th-century geographers
Geographers from the Abbasid Caliphate
Explorers of India
Travel writers of the medieval Islamic world