al-Wafayat - li-Ibn Rafi
- Author died
- 774 AH
- Editions
- Mu’assasat al-Risālah
al-Wafayat (The Necrologies) is a biographical chronicle by the hadith scholar and historian Ibn Rafi al-Salami (704–774 AH / 1305–1372 CE), documenting the deaths of scholars, traditionists, and notables from 737 AH to 773 AH .
Composition and Scope
Ibn Rafi' conceived the book as a continuation (dhayl) to the chronicle al-Muqtafi written by his teacher, the Damascene historian Al-Birzali (d. 739 AH) . In his introduction, Ibn Rafi' explains that al-Birzali had completed the fair copy (mubayyada) of his history up through the end of the year 736 AH . Ibn Rafi' then located draft materials (musawwadat) left by al-Birzali for an additional two years, extracted what was possible from them, and combined these with his own collected records to compile the continuation, carrying the necrology forward from 737 AH through the beginning of 773 AH .
Content and Method
The work is organized chronologically by year and contains detailed biographical notices for contemporaries who passed away during the covered decades . Reflecting Ibn Rafi's expertise in hadith and transmission, the biographies focus heavily on hadith scholars, transmitters, jurists, judges, and notable figures across the Levant, Egypt, and other regions, detailing their genealogies, teachers, auditory transmissions (sama'at), and exact death dates .
Reception and Continuations
al-Wafayat became an authoritative reference for later Mamluk-era historians. Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani praised the book as containing abundant benefits (kathir al-fawa'id) and relied upon it extensively in his biographical dictionary al-Durar al-Kaminah . Al-Sakhawi likewise described it as an exceptionally useful work .
The chronicle generated further continuations by later scholars:
- Ibn Hijji (Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Hijji al-Hisbani al-Dimashqi, d. 816 AH) composed a direct dhayl to Ibn Rafi's al-Wafayat .
- Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani noted that his own chronicle, Inba' al-Ghumr bi-Abna' al-'Umr—which opens with the events of 773 AH, the year of his birth—functions in its necrology as a continuation to Ibn Rafi's work .
Publication
The work was edited by Salih Mahdi 'Abbas and Bashar 'Awwad Ma'ruf and published in two volumes by Mu'assasat al-Risalah in Beirut in 1402 AH (1982 CE) .
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