al-Rawd al-Mitar fi Khabar al-Aqtar
- Author died
- 900 AH
- Editions
- Muʾassasat Nāṣir lil-Thaqāfah
Al-Rawd al-Mitar fi Khabar al-Aqtar (The Fragrant Garden of Reports on Regions) is an Arabic geographical and historical dictionary compiled by the Ceuta-born scholar Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Mun'im al-Himyari (d. 727 AH / 1327 CE; later dates up to 900 AH / 1494–1495 CE are also recorded) .
Title and Author Dating
The title is established in the primary surviving manuscripts as al-Rawd al-Mitar fi Khabar al-Aqtar, though variants such as al-Rawd al-Mitar fi Akhbar al-Aqtar and al-Rawd al-Mitar fi Dhikr al-Aqtar appear in Kashf al-Zunun and al-Maqqari's Nafh al-Tib .
In Kashf al-Zunun, Hajji Khalifa recorded the book twice: once under Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Himyari with a death date of 900 AH, and once under Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Mun'im al-Himyari without a death year . Modern scholars, including Évariste Lévi-Provençal and Ihsan Abbas, observed that the late dating of 900 AH conflicts with the fact that Ahmad al-Qalqashandi (d. 821 AH) explicitly relied on the work as a source for Subh al-A'sha . A manuscript colophon stating that a copy was completed on 17 Safar 866 AH in Jeddah reflects the date of an earlier copyist rather than the author's lifetime . The author is identified with the Ceutan scholar profiled by Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib in al-Ihatah fi Akhbar Gharnatah, whose death in 727 AH during a pestilence near Taza is recorded by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in al-Durar al-Kaminah .
Purpose, Scope, and Structure
The work is arranged alphabetically by place names, following the eastern (mashriqi) order of the Arabic alphabet for the main letter divisions, while showing western (maghribi) ordering tendencies within individual letter sections .
In his preface, al-Himyari explained that he designed the book as an accessible geographical-historical dictionary, selecting well-known places connected with historical narratives, moral lessons, curious reports, or unusual anecdotes, while passing over obscure locations that lacked compelling lore . He contrasted his approach with al-Idrisi's Nuzhat al-Mushtaq, arguing that his own book offered greater utility because al-Idrisi focused primarily on route distances and provided terse descriptions without historical episodes . Although al-Himyari set brevity as an editorial principle, he expanded significantly on notable military and historical events, including the early Islamic conquests and the Battle of al-Zallaqah, noting in the latter entry that he deliberately set aside his rule of concision because of the joy of recounting that victory .
Sources and Method
Al-Himyari rarely named his sources directly, commonly introducing excerpts with the generic phrase qalu ("they said") . His geographical material drew almost entirely from western Islamic authorities, including:
- Nuzhat al-Mushtaq by al-Idrisi, which served as his most extensive geographical base .
- Mu'jam ma Ista'jam and al-Masalik wa-al-Mamalik by Abu Ubayd al-Bakri .
- The anonymous al-Istibsar fi Aja'ib al-Amsar .
- The travelogue (Rihlah) of Ibn Jubayr, whom al-Himyari cited anonymously as "one of the literati" or "some of them" .
He appears to have had no direct access to major eastern geographers such as Ibn Hawqal, al-Istakhri, al-Maqdisi, or Yaqut al-Hamawi . For history, he utilized Ibn Hisham's recension of the Sirah, Abd al-Rahman ibn Hubaysh's Kitab al-Maghazi, and Abu al-Rabi' al-Kala'i's al-Iktifa', as well as sources detailing the history of the Almohad Caliphate and the Mongol invasions . His literary references included Kitab al-Aghani of Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, works by Ibn Sa'id al-Andalusi, and commentaries on the poetry of Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri and Ibn Durayd .
Reception and Editions
The dictionary was cited by later historians and encyclopedists, including al-Qalqashandi in Subh al-A'sha and al-Maqqari in Nafh al-Tib . A summary attributed to al-Maqrizi under the title Jana al-Azhar min al-Rawd al-Mitar was shown by Karl Vollers, Richard Blochet, and Ihsan Abbas to be an abridgment of al-Idrisi's Nuzhat al-Mushtaq rather than of al-Himyari's text .
In 1937, Évariste Lévi-Provençal published and translated the Iberian section of the text under the title La Péninsule Ibérique au Moyen-Âge (Sifat Jazirat al-Andalus) in Cairo . Umberto Rizzitano published excerpts concerning Italian islands and regions in 1956 . The complete Arabic text was critically edited by Ihsan Abbas and published in Beirut by Maktabat Lubnan in 1975, with a second edition in 1984 .
Answer updated