Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad al-Halabi (1217–1285) ( ar, عز الدين بن شدّاد) was an

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

scholar and official for the

Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin ...

from Aleppo.

Biography

'Izz al-Din Muhammad b. 'Ali ibn Shaddad al-Halabi, often quoted simply as Ibn Shaddad, is best known for his ''Al-a'laq al-khatira fi dhikr umara' al-Sham wa'l-Jazira'', a historical geography of Syria (al-Sham) and

Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been ...

(al-Jazira), which he wrote in exile in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

after the

Mongols The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal membe ...

overran Syria. This work has been translated into French and published by Anne-Marie Eddé (on french Wikipedia) as ''Description de la Syrie du Nord'' in Damascus in 1984. He also wrote ''Ta'rikh al-Malik al-zahir'', a biography of Baybars I, the

Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...

ruler of Egypt. 1217 births 1285 deaths 13th-century Arabs 13th-century Egyptian historians People from Aleppo {{Syria-historian-stub