Ibn al-Faqih
- Died
- 340 AH
- Born in
- -
Ibn al-Faqih (d. c. 340 AH / 951 CE) was an author, traditionist, and geographer from Hamadhan, best known for his comprehensive geographical treatise Kitab al-Buldan ( ).
Lineage and Education
His full name was Abu Abd Allah Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Ikhbari al-Hamadhani, commonly known as Ibn al-Faqih and nicknamed Halan . His father, Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Faqih (Abu Ahmad), was a scholar who transmitted historical reports from Ibrahim ibn Humayd al-Basri and others .
Ibn al-Faqih received learning from his father, as well as from Ibrahim ibn al-Husayn ibn Dizil
, Muhammad ibn Ayyub al-Razi, and Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Abi al-Sarh al-Ikhbari . In turn, his transmissions and reports were related by students including Abu Bakr ibn Lal and Abu Bakr ibn Ruzbah .
Scholarly Standing and Reception
Ibn al-Faqih was recognized among the scholars of belles-lettres (adab) and historical reports (akhbar) . He composed his major geographical work, Kitab al-Buldan (The Book of Lands), following the death of the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tadid . The bibliographer Ibn al-Nadim described the original compilation as comprising around one thousand folios drawn from various books, while also recording a literary biographical work by him titled Dhikr al-shu'ara' al-muhdathin wa-al-bulagha' minhum wa-al-mufhamin (Account of Modern Poets, the Eloquent Among Them and the Silenced) .
Ibn al-Nadim accused Ibn al-Faqih of having extensively plagiarized the work of al-Jayhani, an accusation that influenced later biographers, though later scholars noted that Ibn al-Faqih's text was composed before al-Jayhani's work appeared . Katip Celebi noted that Ibn al-Faqih focused his descriptions on major cities rather than an exhaustive arrangement of all localities, interspersing geographical accounts of seas and provinces such as China, India, and Arabia with ascetical anecdotes, humor, and emotional narratives . An abridgment of his geographical treatise, Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan, was preserved and later edited by Michael Jan de Goeje .
Death
Early local biographical accounts, including that of Shirawayh ibn Shahradar al-Daylami, did not record his year of death . Later biographical sources place his death around 340 AH (951 CE), while other accounts report that he died in 365 AH or 367 AH .
Answer updated
List of Works
Kitab al-Buldan (The Book of Lands), also titled Akhbar al-Buldan, is an early 10th-century Arabic geographical treatise dated to around 290 AH (ca. 903 CE). It provides comprehensive descriptions of various provinces, cities, routes, and seas across the Islamic world and neighboring lands, blending geographical facts with historical and literary traditions.