Ikhbar al-Ulama bi-Akhbar al-Hukama
- Author died
- 646 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyah
Ikhbar al-Ulama bi-Akhbar al-Hukama (Informing Scholars of the Accounts of the Wise), also widely known as Ta'rikh al-Hukama, is a biographical dictionary of philosophers, physicians, astronomers, and scientists by the Ayyubid vizier and scholar Jamal al-Din al-Qifti (d. 646 AH / 1248 CE) .
Purpose and Scope
In his introduction, al-Qifti states that scholars differed regarding the first person to speak on wisdom and its branches—namely mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics—noting that each group identified its own founder, all ultimately tracing back to the prophet Idris or his students . Seeing the history of the ancient and later scholars of wisdom as having fallen into neglect, al-Qifti composed the book to preserve the biographies of renowned figures of wisdom from every nation and era down to his time, detailing their unique statements, written works, and credited innovations .
Structure and Method
The work comprises more than 400 biographical entries arranged alphabetically, ordered under each letter chronologically according to antiquity . It includes ancient Greek, Indian, Persian, and Syriac figures as well as Muslim scholars of the rational sciences, physicians, and astronomers . The book also features a dedicated section for figures known primarily by their agnomens (al-kuna fi asma' al-hukama) .
Al-Qifti adopted a concise style in many entries while expanding at length on select prominent figures . When compared to the contemporary biographical work 'Uyun al-anba' fi tabaqat al-atibba' by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a (d. 668 AH / 1270 CE), al-Qifti's text is approximately half its length due to its conciseness, though it includes certain biographies absent from Ibn Abi Usaybi'a's work .
Transmission and Editions
The complete original text of the work has not survived in full; the version that has circulated is an abridgment prepared by Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad al-Zawzani under the title al-Muntakhabat al-multaqatat min kitab Akhbar al-hukama .
The abridgment was first edited by the Orientalist Julius Lippert and published in Leipzig in 1903 under the title Ta'rikh al-Hukama . It was subsequently published in Cairo in 1326 AH (1908 CE) by Muhammad Amin al-Khanji, who collated Lippert's print against three manuscripts preserved in the Khedivial Library, where the title was recorded as Tarajim al-hukama . A later single-volume edition edited by Ibrahim Shams al-Din was published in Beirut in 1426 AH (2005 CE) .
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