Chapter 22

(G. W. T.)

IBN BATUTA,i.e.Abu Abdullah Mahommed, surnamedIbn Batuta(1304-1378), the greatest of Moslem travellers, was born at Tangier in 1304. He entered on his travels at twenty-one (1325) and closed them in 1355. He began by traversing the coast of the Mediterranean from Tangier to Alexandria, finding time to marry two wives on the road. After some stay at Cairo, then probably the greatest city in the world (excluding China), and an unsuccessful attempt to reach Mecca from Aidhab on the west coast of the Red Sea, he visited Palestine, Aleppo and Damascus. He then made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and visited the shrine of Ali at Mashhad-Ali, travelling thence to Basra, and across the mountains of Khuzistan to Isfahan, thence to Shiraz and back to Kufa and Bagdad. After an excursion to Mosul and Diarbekr, he made thehaja second time, staying at Mecca three years. He next sailed down the Red Sea to Aden (then a place of great trade), the singular position of which he describes, noticing its dependence for water-supply upon the great cisterns restored in modern times. He continued his voyage down the African coast, visiting, among other places, Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa). Returning north he passed by the chief cities of Oman to New Ormuz (Hurmuz), which had about 15 years before,c.1315, been transferred to its famous island-site from the mainland (Old Ormuz). After visiting other parts of the gulf he crossed the breadth of Arabia to Mecca, making thehajfor the third time. Crossing the Red Sea, he made a journey of great hardship to Syene, and thence along the Nile to Cairo. After this, travelling through Syria, he made a circuit among the petty Turkish states into which Asia Minor was divided after the fall of the kingdom of Rum (Iconium). He now crossed the Black Sea to Kaffa, then mainly occupied by the Genoese, and apparently the first Christian city he had seen, for he was much perturbed by the bell-ringing. He next travelled into Kipchak (the Mongol khanate of Russia), and joined the camp of the reigning khan Mahommed Uzbeg, from whom the great and heterogeneousUzbegrace is perhaps named. Among other places in this empire he travelled to Bolghar (54° 54′ N.) in order to witness the shortness of the summer night, and desired to continue his travels north into the “Land of Darkness” (in the extreme north of Russia), of which wonderful things were told, but was obliged to forego this. Returning to the khan’s camp he joined the cortège of one of the Khatuns, who was a Greek princess by birth (probably illegitimate) and in her train travelled to Constantinople, where he had an interview with the emperor Andronikos III. the Younger (1328-1341). He tells how, as he passed the city gates, he heard the guards mutteringSarakinu. Returning to the court of Uzbeg, at Sarai on the Volga, he crossed the steppes to Khwarizm and Bokhara; thence through Khorasan and Kabul, and over the Hindu Kush (to which he gives that name, its first occurrence). He reachedthe Indus, on his own statement, in September, 1333. This closes the first part of his narrative.

From Sind, which he traversed to the sea and back again, he proceeded to Multan, and eventually, on the invitation of Mahommed Tughlak, the reigning sovereign, to Delhi. Mahommed was a singular character, full of pretence at least to many accomplishments and virtues, the founder of public charities, and a profuse patron of scholars, but a parricide, a fratricide, and as madly capricious, bloodthirsty and unjust as Caligula. “No day did his palace gate fail to witness the elevation of some abject to affluence and the torture and murder of some living soul.” He appointed the traveller to be kazi of Delhi, with a present of 12,000 silver dinars (rupees), and an annual salary of the same amount, besides an assignment of village lands. In the sultan’s service Ibn Batuta remained eight years; but his good fortune stimulated his natural extravagance, and his debts soon amounted to four or five times his salary. At last he fell into disfavour and retired from court, only to be summoned again on a congenial duty. The emperor of China, last of the Mongol dynasty, had sent a mission to Delhi, and the Moor was to accompany the return embassy (1342). The party travelled through central India to Cambay and thence sailed to Calicut, classed by the traveller with the neighbouring Kaulam (Quilon), Alexandria, Sudak in the Crimea, and Zayton (Amoy harbour) in China, as one of the greatest trading havens in the world—an interesting enumeration from one who had seen them all. The mission party was to embark in Chinese junks (the word used) and smaller vessels, but that carrying the other envoys and the presents, which started before Ibn Batuta was ready, was wrecked totally; the vessel that he had engaged went off with his property, and he was left on the beach of Calicut. Not daring to return to Delhi, he remained about Honore and other cities of the western coast, taking part in various adventures, among others the capture of Sindabur (Goa), and visiting the Maldive Islands, where he became kazi, and married four wives, and of which he has left the best medieval account, hardly surpassed by any modern. In August 1344 he left the Maldives for Ceylon; here he made the pilgrimage to the “Footmark of our Father Adam.” Thence he betook himself to Maabar (the Coromandel coast), where he joined a Mussulman adventurer, residing at Madura, who had made himself master of much of that region. After once more visiting Malabar, Canara and the Maldives, he departed for Bengal, a voyage of forty-three days, landing at Sadkawan (Chittagong). In Bengal he visited the famous Moslem saint Shaykh Jalaluddin, whose shrine (Shah Jalalat Silhet) is still maintained. Returning to the delta, he took ship at Sunarganw (near Dacca) on a junk bound for Java (i.e.Java Minorof Marco Polo, or Sumatra). Touching the coast of Arakan or Burma, he reached Sumatra in forty days, and was provided with a junk for China by Malik al Dhahir, a zealous disciple of Islam, which had recently spread among the states on the northern coast of that island. Calling (apparently) at Cambodia on his way, Ibn Batuta reached China at Zayton (Amoy harbour), famous from Marco Polo; he also visited Sin Kalan or Canton, and professes to have been in Khansa (Kinsayof Marco Polo,i.e.Hangchau), and Khanbalik (Cambalucor Peking). The truth of his visit to these two cities, and especially to the last, has been questioned. The traveller’s history, not least in China, singularly illustrates the free masonry of Islam, and its power of carrying a Moslem doctor over the known world of Asia and Africa. On his way home he saw the great birdRukh(evidently, from his description, an island lifted by refraction); revisited Sumatra, Malabar, Oman, Persia, Bagdad, and crossed the great desert to Palmyra and Damascus, where he got his first news of home, and heard of his father’s death fifteen years before. Diverging to Hamath and Aleppo, on his return to Damascus, he found the Black Death raging, so that two thousand four hundred died in one day. Revisiting Jerusalem and Cairo he made thehaja fourth time, and finally reappeared at Fez (visiting Sardiniaen route) on the 8th of November 1349, after twenty-four years’ absence. Morocco, he felt, was, after all, the best of countries. “Thedirhemsof the West are but little; but then you get more for them.” After going home to Tangier, Ibn Batuta crossed into Spain and made the round of Andalusia, including Gibraltar, which had just then stood a siege from the “Roman tyrant Adfunus” (Alphonso XI. of Castile, 1312-1350). In 1352 the restless man started for Central Africa, passing by the oases of the Sahara (where the houses were built of rock-salt, as Herodotus tells, and roofed with camel skins) to Timbuktu and Gogo on the Niger, a river which he calls the Nile, believing it to flow down into Egypt, an opinion maintained by some up to the date of Lander’s discovery. Being then recalled by his own king, he returned to Fez (early in 1354) via Takadda, Haggar and Tuat. Thus ended his twenty-eight years’ wanderings which in their main lines alone exceeded 75,000 m. By royal order he dictated his narrative to Mahommed Ibn Juzai, who concludes the work, 13th of December 1355 (A.D.) with the declaration: “This Shaykh is the traveller of our age; and he who should call him the traveller of the whole body of Islam would not exceed the truth.” Ibn Batuta died in 1378, aged seventy-three.

Ibn Batuta’s travels have only been known in Europe during the 19th century; at first merely by Arabic abridgments in the Gotha and Cambridge libraries. Notices or extracts had been published by Seetzen (c.1808), Kosegarten (1818), Apetz (1819), and Burckhardt (1819), when in 1829 Dr S. Lee published for the Oriental Translation Fund a version from the abridged MSS. at Cambridge, which attracted much interest. The French capture of Constantina afforded MSS. of the complete work, one of them the autograph of Ibn Juzai. And from these, after versions of fragments by various French scholars, was derived at last (1858-1859) the standard edition and translation of the whole by M. Défrémery and Dr Sanguinetti, in 4 vols. See also Sir Henry Yule, Cathay, ii. 397-526; C. Raymond Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 535-538. Though there are some singular chronological difficulties in the narrative, and a good many cursory inaccuracies and exaggerations, there is no part of it except, perhaps, certain portions of the journeys in north China, which is open to doubt. The accounts of the Maldive Islands, and of the Negro countries on the Niger, are replete with interesting and accurate particulars. The former agrees surprisingly with that given by the only other foreign resident we know of, Pyrard de la Val, two hundred and fifty years later. Ibn Batuta’s statements and anecdotes regarding the showy virtues and solid vices of Sultan Muhammad Tughlak are in entire agreement with Indian historians, and add many fresh details.

(H. Y.; C. R. B.)

IBN DURAID[Abū Bakr Mahommed ibn ul-Ḥasan ibn Duraid ul-Azdī] (837-934), Arabian poet and philologist, was born at Baṣra of south Arabian stock. At his native place he was trained under various teachers, but fled in 871 to Oman at the time Baṣra was attacked by the negroes, known as the Zanj, under Muhallabī. After living twelve years in Oman he went to Persia, and, under the protection of the governor, ‘Abdallāh ibn Mahommed ibn Mīkāl, and his son, Isma’īl, wrote his chief works. In 920 he went to Bagdad, where he received a pension from the caliph Moqtadir.

TheMaqsūra, a poem in praise of Ibn Mīkāl and his son, has been edited by A. Haitsma (1773) E. Scheidius (1786) and N. Boyesen (1828). Various commentaries on the poem exist in MS. (cf. C. Brockelmann,Gesch. der ar. Lit., i. 211 ff., Weimar, 1898), TheJamhara fi-l-Lughais a large dictionary written in Persian but not printed. Another work is theKitāb ul-Ishtiqāq(“Book of Etymology”), edited by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1854); it was written in opposition to the anti-Arabian party to show the etymological connexion of the Arabian tribal names.

(G. W. T.)

IBN FARADĪ[Abū-l-Walīd ‘Abdallāh ibn ul-Faradi] (962-1012), Arabian historian, was born at Cordova and studied law and tradition. In 992 he made the pilgrimage and proceeded to Egypt and Kairawān, studying in these places. After his return in 1009 he became cadi in Valencia, and was killed at Cordova when the Berbers took the city.

His chief work is theHistory of the Learned Men of Andalusia, edited by F. Codera (Madrid, 1891-1892). He wrote also a history of the poets of Andalusia.

(G. W. T.)

IBN FĀRID[Abū-l-Qāsim ‘Umar ibn ul-Fāriḍ] (1181-1235), Arabian poet, was born in Cairo, lived for some time in Mecca and died in Cairo. His poetry is entirely Sufic, and he was esteemed the greatest mystic poet of the Arabs. Some of his poems are said to have been written in ecstasies. His diwan has been published with commentary at Beirūt, 1887, &c.; with the commentaries of Burīnī (d. 1615) and ‘Abdul-Ghānī (d. 1730) at Marseilles, 1853, and at Cairo; and with the commentary of Rushayyid Ghālib(19th century) at Cairo, 1893. One of the separate poems was edited by J. von Hammer Purgstall asDas arabische hohe Lied der Liebe(Vienna, 1854).

See R. A. Nicholson,A Literary History of the Arabs(London, 1907), pp. 394-398.

(G. W. T.)

IBN GABIROL[Solomon ben Judah], Jewish poet and philosopher, was born at Malaga, probably about 1021. The early part of his troublous life was spent at Saragossa, but few personal details of it are recorded. His parents died while he was a child and he was under the protection first of a certain Jekuthiel, who died in 1039, and afterwards of Samuel ha-Nagid, the well-known patron of learning. His passionate disposition, however, embittered no doubt by his misfortunes, involved him in frequent difficulties and led to his quarrelling with Samuel. It is generally agreed that he died young, although the date is uncertain. Al Harizi1says at the age of twenty-nine, and Moses b. Ezra2about thirty, but Abraham Zaccuto3states that he died (at Valencia) in 1070. M. Steinschneider4accepts the date 1058.

His literary activity began early. He is said to have composed poems at the age of sixteen, and elegies by him are extant on Hai Gaon (died in 1038) and Jekuthiel (died in 1039), each of which was written probably soon after the death of the person commemorated. About the same time he also wrote his‘Anaq, a poem on grammar, of which only 97 lines out of 400 are preserved. Moses ben Ezra says of him that he imitated Moslem models, and was the first to open to Jewish poets the door of versification,5meaning that he first popularized the use of Arabic metres in Hebrew. It is as a poet that he has been known to the Jews to the present day, and admired for the youthful freshness and beauty of his work, in which he may be compared to the romantic school in France and England in the early 19th century. Besides his lyrical and satirical poems, he contributed many of the finest compositions to the liturgy (some of them with the acrostic “Shelomoh ha-qaṭō”), which are widely different from the artificial manner of the earlier payyeṭanim. The best known of his longer liturgical compositions are the philosophicalKether Malkūth(for the Day of Atonement) and theAzharōth, on the 613 precepts (forShebhu‘ōth). Owing to his pure biblical style he had an abiding influence on subsequent liturgical writers.

Outside the Jewish community he was known as the philosopher Avicebron (Avencebrol, Avicebrol, &c.) The credit of identifying this name as a medieval corruption of Ibn Gabirol is due to S. Munk, who showed that selections made by Shem Tōbh Palqera (or Falqera) from the Meqōr Ḥayyīm (the Hebrew translation of an Arabic original) by Ibn Gabirol, corresponded to the LatinFons Vitaeof Avicebron. The Latin version, made by Johannes Hispalensis and Gundisalvi about one hundred years after the author’s death, had at once become known among the Schoolmen of the 12th century and exerted a powerful influence upon them, although so little was known of the author that it was doubted whether he was a Christian or a Moslem. The teaching of theFons Vitaewas entirely new to the country of its origin, and being drawn largely from Neoplatonic sources could not be expected to find favour with Jewish thinkers. Its distinctive doctrines are: (1) that all created beings, spiritual or corporeal, are composed of matter and form, the various species of matter being but varieties of the universal matter, and similarly all forms being contained in one universal form; (2) that between the primal One and the intellect (theνοῦςof Plotinus) there is interposed the divine Will, which is itself divine and above the distinction of form and matter, but is the cause of their union in the being next to itself, the intellect, in which Avicebron holds that the distinction does exist. The doctrine that there is a material, as well as a formal, element in all created beings was explicitly adopted from Avicebron by Duns Scotus (as against the view of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas), and perhaps his exaltation of the will above the intellect is due to the same influence. Avicebron develops his philosophical system throughout quite independently of his religious views—a practice wholly foreign to Jewish teachers, and one which could not be acceptable to them. Indeed, this charge is expressly brought against him by Abraham ben David of Toledo (died in 1180). It is doubtless this non-religious attitude which accounts for the small attention paid to theFons Vitaeby the Jews, as compared with the wide influence of the philosophy of Maimonides.

The other important work of Ibn Gabirol isIṣlāḥ al-akhlāq(the improvement of character), a popular work in Arabic, translated into Hebrew (Tiqqūn middōth ha-nephesh) by Judah ibn Tibbon. It is widely different in treatment from theFons, being intended as a practical not a speculative work.

The collection of moral maxims, compiled in Arabic but best known (in the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon) asMibḥar ha-penīnīm, is generally ascribed to Ibn Gabirol, though on less certain grounds.

Bibliography.—Texts of the liturgical poems are to be found in the prayer-books: others in Dukes and Edelmann,Treasures of Oxford(Oxford, 1850); Dukes,Shīrē Shelomoh(Hanover, 1858); S. Sachs,Shīr ha-shīrīm asher li-Shelomoh(Paris, 1868, incomplete); Brody,Die weltlichen Gedichte des ... Gabirol(Berlin, 1897, &c.).“Avencebrolis Fons Vitae” (Latin text) in Clemens Bäumker’sBeiträge zur Gesch. d. Philosophie, Bd. i. Hefte 2-4 (Münster, 1892);The Improvement of the Moral Qualities[Arabic and English] ed. by S. S. Wise (New York, 1901);A Choice of Pearls[Hebrew and English] ed. by Ascher (London, 1859).On the philosophy in general: S. Munk,Mélanges(quoted above); Guttmann,Die Philosophie des Sal.-ibn Gabirol(Göttingen, 1889); D. Kaufmann,Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol(Budapest, 1899); S. Horovitz, “Die Psychologie Ibn Gabirols,” in theJahresbericht des jüd. theol. Seminars Fränckel’scher Stiftung(Breslau, 1900); Wittmann, “Zur Stellung Avencebrols ...” (in Bäumker’sBeiträge, Bd. v. Heft 1, Münster, 1905).

“Avencebrolis Fons Vitae” (Latin text) in Clemens Bäumker’sBeiträge zur Gesch. d. Philosophie, Bd. i. Hefte 2-4 (Münster, 1892);The Improvement of the Moral Qualities[Arabic and English] ed. by S. S. Wise (New York, 1901);A Choice of Pearls[Hebrew and English] ed. by Ascher (London, 1859).

On the philosophy in general: S. Munk,Mélanges(quoted above); Guttmann,Die Philosophie des Sal.-ibn Gabirol(Göttingen, 1889); D. Kaufmann,Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol(Budapest, 1899); S. Horovitz, “Die Psychologie Ibn Gabirols,” in theJahresbericht des jüd. theol. Seminars Fränckel’scher Stiftung(Breslau, 1900); Wittmann, “Zur Stellung Avencebrols ...” (in Bäumker’sBeiträge, Bd. v. Heft 1, Münster, 1905).

(A. Cy.)

1Jud. Har. Macamæ, ed. Lagarde (Göttingen, 1883), p. 89, l. 61.2See the passage quoted by Munk,Mélanges de philosophie arabe et juive(Paris, 1859), pp. 264 and 517.3Liber Juchassin, ed. Filipowski (London, 1857), p. 217.4Hebr. Übersetzungen(Berlin, 1893), § 219, note 70; cf. Kaufmann,Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol(Budapest, 1899), p. 79, note 2.5See Munk,op. cit.pp. 515-516, transl. on pp. 263-264. Metre had been already used by Dunash.

1Jud. Har. Macamæ, ed. Lagarde (Göttingen, 1883), p. 89, l. 61.

2See the passage quoted by Munk,Mélanges de philosophie arabe et juive(Paris, 1859), pp. 264 and 517.

3Liber Juchassin, ed. Filipowski (London, 1857), p. 217.

4Hebr. Übersetzungen(Berlin, 1893), § 219, note 70; cf. Kaufmann,Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol(Budapest, 1899), p. 79, note 2.

5See Munk,op. cit.pp. 515-516, transl. on pp. 263-264. Metre had been already used by Dunash.

IBN HAUKAL,strictlyIbn Hauqal, a 10th century Arabian geographer. Nothing is known of his life. His work on geography, written in 977, is only a revision and extension of theMasālik ul-Mamālikof al-Iṣṭakhrī, who wrote in 951. This itself was a revised edition of theKitāb ul-AshkālorṢuwar ul-Aqālimof Abū Zaid ul-Balkhī, who wrote about 921. Ibn Hauḳal’s work was published by M. J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1873). An anonymous epitome of the book was written in 1233.

See M. J. de Goeje, “Die Iṣṭahrī-Balhī Frage,” in theZeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, xxv. 42 sqq.

IBN ḤAZM[Abū Maḥommed ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥazm] (994-1064), Moslem theologian, was born in a suburb of Cordova. He studied history, law and theology, and became a vizier as his father had been before him, but was deposed for heresy, and spent the rest of his life quietly in the country. In legal matters he belonged first to the Shāfi’ite school, but came to adopt the views of the Zāhirites, who admitted only the external sense of the Koran and tradition, disallowing the use of analogy (Qiyās) andTaqlīd(appeal to the authority of an imām), and objecting altogether to the use of individual opinion (Ra‘y). Every sentence of the Koran was to be interpreted in a general and universal sense; the special application to the circumstances of the time it was written was denied. Every word of the Koran was to be taken in a literal sense, but that sense was to be learned from other uses in the Koran itself, not from the meaning in other literature of the time. The special feature of Ibn Ḥazm’s teaching was that he extended the application of these principles from the study of law to that of dogmatic theology. He thus found himself in opposition at one time to the Mo‘tazilites, at another to the Ash‘arites. He did not, however, succeed in forming a school. His chief work is theKitāb ul-Milal wan-Niḥal, or “Book of Sects” (published in Cairo, 1899).

For his teaching cf. I. Goldziher,Die Zahiriten, pp. 116-172 (Leipzig, (1884), and M. Schreiner in theJournal of the German Oriental Society, lii. 464-486. For a list of his other works see C. Brockelmann’sGeschichte der arabischen Literatur, vol. i. (Weimar, 1898), p. 400.

(G. W. T.)

IBN HISHĀM[Abū Maḥommed ‘Abdulmalik ibn Hishām ibn Ayyūb ul-Himyarī] (d. 834), Arabian biographer, studied in Kufa but lived afterwards in Fostāt (old Cairo), where he gained a name as a grammarian and student of language and history. His chief work is his edition of Ibn Isḥāq’s (q.v.)Life of the Apostle of God, which has been edited by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1858-1860). An abridged German translation has been made by G. Weil (Stuttgart, 1864; cf. P. Brönnle,Die Commentatoren des Ibn Isḥaq und ihre Scholien, Halle, 1895). Ibn Hishām is said to have written a work explaining the difficult words which occur in poems on the life of the Apostle, and another on the genealogies of the Himyarites and their princes.

(G. W. T.)

IBN ISHĀQ[Mahommed ibn Isḥāq Abū ‘Abdallāh] (d. 768), Arabic historian, lived in Medina, where he interested himself to such an extent in the details of the Prophet’s life that he was attacked by those to whom his work seemed to have a rationalistic tendency. He consequently left Medina in 733, and went to Alexandria, then to Kufa and Hira, and finally to Bagdad, where the caliph Manṣūr provided him with the means of writing his great work. This was theLife of the Apostle of God, which is now lost and is known to us only in the recension of Ibn Hishām (q.v.). The work has been attacked by Arabian writers (as in theFihrist) as untrustworthy, and it seems clear that he introduced forged verses (cf.Journal of the German Oriental Society, xiv. 288 sqq.). It remains, however, one of the most important works of the age.

(G. W. T.)

IBN JUBAIR[Abū-l Ḥusain Maḥommed ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubair] (1145-1217), Arabian geographer, was born in Valencia. At Granada he studied the Koran, tradition, law and literature, and later became secretary to the Mohad governor of that city. During this time he composed many poems. In 1183 he left the court and travelled to Alexandria, Jerusalem, Medina, Mecca, Damascus, Mosul and Bagdad, returning in 1185 by way of Sicily.

TheTravels of Ibn Jubairwere edited by W. Wright (Leiden, 1852); and a new edition of this text, revised by M. J. de Goeje, was published by the Gibb Trustees (London, 1907). The part relating to Sicily was published, with French translation and notes, by M. Amari in theJournal asiatique(1845-1846) and a French translation alone of the same part by G. Crolla inMuseon, vi. 123-132.

(G. W. T.)

IBN KHALDŪN[Abū Zaid ibn Maḥommed ibn Maḥommed ibn Khaldūn] (1332-1406), Arabic historian, was born at Tunis. He studied the various branches of Arabic learning with great success. In 1352 he obtained employment under the Marīnid sultan Abū Inān (Faris I.) at Fez. In the beginning of 1356, his integrity having been suspected, he was thrown into prison until the death of Abū Inān in 1358, when the vizier al-Hasan ibn Omar set him at liberty and reinstated him in his rank and offices. He here continued to render great service to Abu Salem (Ibrahim III.), Abū Inān’s successor, but, having offended the prime minister, he obtained permission to emigrate to Spain, where, at Granada, he was received with great cordiality by Ibn al Ahmar, who had been greatly indebted to his good offices when an exile at the court of Abu Salem. The favours he received from the sovereign excited the jealousy of the vizier, and he was driven back to Africa (1364), where he was received with great cordiality by the sultan of Bougie, Abu Abdallah, who had been formerly his companion in prison. On the fall of Abu Abdallah Ibn Khaldūn raised a large force amongst the desert Arabs, and entered the service of the sultan of Tlemçen. A few years later he was taken prisoner by Abdalaziz (‘Abd ul ‘Azīz), who had defeated the sultan of Tlemçen and seized the throne. He then entered a monastic establishment, and occupied himself with scholastic duties, until in 1370 he was sent for to Tlemçen by the new sultan. After the death of ‘Abd ul ‘Azīz he resided at Fez, enjoying the patronage and confidence of the regent. After some further vicissitudes in 1378 he entered the service of the sultan of his native town of Tunis, where he devoted himself almost exclusively to his studies and wrote his history of the Berbers. Having received permission to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, he reached Cairo, where he was presented to the sultan, al-Malik udh-Dhahir Barkuk, who insisted on his remaining there, and in the year 1384 made him grand cadi of the Malikite rite for Cairo. This office he filled with great prudence and probity, removing many abuses in the administration of justice in Egypt. At this time the ship in which his wife and family, with all his property, were coming to join him, was wrecked, and every one on board lost. He endeavoured to find consolation in the completion of his history of the Arabs of Spain. At the same time he was removed from his office of cadi, which gave him more leisure for his work. Three years later he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his return lived in retirement in the Fayum until 1399, when he was again called upon to resume his functions as cadi. He was removed and reinstated in the office no fewer than five times.

In 1400 he was sent to Damascus, in connexion with the expedition intended to oppose Timur or Tamerlane. When Timur had become master of the situation, Ibn Khaldūn let himself down from the walls of the city by a rope, and presented himself before the conqueror, who permitted him to return to Egypt. Ibn Khaldūn died on the 16th of March 1406, at the age of sixty-four.

The great work by which he is known is a “Universal History,” but it deals more particularly with the history of the Arabs of Spain and Africa. Its Arabic title isKitāb ul‘Ibar, wa dīwān el Mubtada wa’l Khabar, fī ayyām ul ‘Arab wa’l’Ajām wa’l Berber; that is, “The Book of Examples and the Collection of Origins and Information respecting the History of the Arabs, Foreigners and Berbers.” It consists of three books, an introduction and an autobiography. Book i. treats of the influence of civilization upon man; book ii. of the history of the Arabs and other peoples from the remotest antiquity until the author’s own times; book iii. of the history of the Berber tribes and of the kingdoms founded by that race in North Africa. The introduction is an elaborate treatise on the science of history and the development of society, and the autobiography contains the history, not only of the author himself, but of his family and of the dynasties which ruled in Fez, Tunis and Tlemçen during his lifetime. An edition of the Arabic text has been printed at Būlāq, (7 vols., 1867) and a part of the work has been translated by the late Baron McG. de Slane under the title ofHistoire des Berbères(Algiers, 1852-1856); it contains an admirable account of the author and analysis of his work. Vol. i., theMuqaddama(preface), was published by M. Quatremère (3 vols., Paris, 1858), often republished in the East, and a French translation was made by McG. de Slane (3 vols., Paris, 1862-1868). The parts of the history referring to the expeditions of the Franks into Moslem lands were edited by C. J. Tornberg (Upsala, 1840), and the parts treating of the Banu-l Aḥmar kings of Granada were translated into French by M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes in theJournal asiatique, ser. 9, vol. xiii. TheAutobiographyof Ibn Khaldūn was translated into French by de Slane in theJournal asiatique, ser. 4, vol. iii. For an English appreciation of the philosophical spirit of Ibn Khaldūn see R. Flint’sHistory of the Philosophy of History(Edinburgh, 1893), pp. 157-170.

(E. H. P.; G. W. T.)

IBN KHALLIKĀN[Abū-l ‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn Khallikān] (1211-1282), Arabian biographer, was born at Arbela, the son of a professor reputed to be ascended from the Barmecides of the court of Harun al-Rashid. When eighteen he went to Aleppo, where he studied for six years, then to Damascus, and in 1238 to Alexandria and Cairo. In 1252 he married and became chief cadi of Syria in Damascus in 1261. Having held this office for ten years, he was professor in Cairo until 1278, when he again took office in Damascus for three years. In 1281 he accepted a professorship in the same city, but died in the following year.

His great work is theKitab Wafayāt ul-A‘yān, “The Obituaries of Eminent Men.” It contains in alphabetical order the lives of the most celebrated persons of Moslem history and literature, except those of Mahomet, the four caliphs and the companions of Mahomet and their followers (theTābiūn). The work is anecdotal and contains many brief extracts from the poetry of the writers. It was published by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1835-1843), in part by McG. de Slane (Paris, 1838-1842), and also in Cairo (1859 and 1882). An English translation by McG. de Slane was published for the Oriental Translation Fund in 4 vols. (London, 1842-1871). Thirteen extra biographies from a manuscript in Amsterdam were published by Pijnappel (Amsterdam, 1845). A Persian translation exists in manuscript, and various extracts from the work are known. Several supplements to the book have been written, the best known being that of Maḥommed ibn Shākir (d. 1362), published at Cairo 1882. A collection of poems by Ibn Khallikān is also extant.

(G. W. T.)

IBN QUTAIBA,orKotaiba[Abū Maḥommed ibn Muslim ibn Qutaiba] (828-889), Arabian writer, was born at Bagdad orKufa, and was of Iranian descent, his father belonging to Merv. Having studied tradition and philology he became cadi in Dinawār and afterwards teacher in Bagdad, where he died. He was the first representative of the eclectic school of Bagdad philologists that succeeded the schools of Kufa and Baṣra (seeArabia:Literature, section “Grammar”). Although engaged also in theological polemic (cf. I. Goldziher,Muhammedanische Studien, ii. 136, Halle, 1890), his chief works were directed to the training of the ideal secretary. Of these five may be said to form a series. TheAdab ul-Kātib(“Training of the Secretary”) contains instruction in writing and is a compendium of Arabic style. It has been edited by Max Grünert (Leiden, 1900). TheKitāb ush-Sharābis still in manuscript. TheKitāb ul-Ma’ārifhas been edited by F. Wüstenfeld as theHandbuch der Geschichte1(Göttingen, 1850); theKitāb ush-Shi’r wash-Shu’arāi(“Book of Poetry and Poets”) edited by M. J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1904).2The fifth and most important is the’Uyūn ul-Akhbār, which deals in ten books with lordship, war, nobility, character, science and eloquence, asceticism, friendship, requests, foods and women, with many illustrations from history, poetry and proverb (ed. C. Brockelmann, Leiden, 1900 sqq.).

For other works (which were much quoted by later Arabian writers) see C. Brockelmann,Gesch. der arabischen Literatur, vol. i. (Weimar, 1898), pp. 120-122.

(G. W. T.)

1Summary in E. G. Browne,A Literary History of Persia(London, 1902), pp. 387 f.2The preface was translated into German by Theodor Nöldeke in hisBeiträge(Hanover, 1864), pp. 1-51.

1Summary in E. G. Browne,A Literary History of Persia(London, 1902), pp. 387 f.

2The preface was translated into German by Theodor Nöldeke in hisBeiträge(Hanover, 1864), pp. 1-51.

IBN ṢA’D[Abū ‘Abdallāh Maḥommed ibn Ṣa’d ibn Mani’ uz-Zuhrī], often called Kātib ul-Waqidī (“secretary of Waqidī”) of Baṣra] (d. 845), Arabian biographer, received his training in tradition from Waqidī and other celebrated teachers. He lived for the most part in Bagdad, and had the reputation of being both trustworthy and accurate in his writings, which, in consequence, were much used by later writers. His work, theKitāb ul-Ṭabaqāt ul-Kabīr(15 vols.) contains the lives of Mahomet, his Companions and Helpers (including those who fought at Badr as a special class) and of the following generation (the Followers) who received their traditions from the personal friends of the Prophet.

This work has been edited under the superintendence of E. Sachau (Leiden, 1904 sqq.); cf. O. Loth,Das Classenbuch des Ibn Sa‘d(Leipzig, 1869).

(G. W. T.)

IBN TIBBON,a family of Jewish translators, who flourished in Provence in the 12th and 13th centuries. They all made original contributions to philosophical and scientific literature, but their permanent fame is based on their translations. Between them they rendered into Hebrew all the chief Jewish writings of the middle ages. These Hebrew translations were, in their turn, rendered into Latin (by Buxtorf and others) and in this form the works of Jewish authors found their way into the learned circles of Europe. The chief members of the Ibn Tibbon family were (1)Judah Ben Saul(1120-1190), who was born in Spain but settled in Lunel. He translated the works of Baḥya, Halevi, Saadiah and the grammatical treatises of Janaḥ. (2) His son,Samuel(1150-1230), translated theGuide of the Perplexedby Maimonides. He justly termed his father “the father of the Translators,” but Samuel’s own method surpassed his father’s in lucidity and fidelity to the original. (3) Son of Samuel,Moses(died 1283). He translated into Hebrew a large number of Arabic books (including the Arabic form of Euclid). The Ibn Tibbon family thus rendered conspicuous services to European culture, and did much to further among Jews who did not understand Arabic the study of science and philosophy.

(I. A.)

IBN ṬUFAIL,orṬofail[Abū Bakr Maḥommed ibn ‘Abd-ul-Malik ibn Ṭufail ul-Qaisī] (d. 1185), Moslem philosopher, was born at Guadix near Granada. There he received a good training in philosophy and medicine, and is said to have been a pupil of Avempace (q.v.). He became secretary to the governor of Granada, and later physician and vizier to the Mohad caliph, Abu Ya‘qūb Yūsuf. He died at Morocco.

His chief work is a philosophical romance, in which he describes the awakening and growth of intellect in a child removed from the influences of ordinary life. Its Arabic title isRisālat Hayy ibn Yaqzān; it was edited by E. Pococke asPhilosophus autodidactus(Oxford, 1671; 2nd ed., 1700), and with a French translation by L. Gauthier (Algiers, 1900). An English translation by S. Ockley was published in 1708 and has been reprinted since. A Spanish translation by F. Pons Boigues was published at Saragossa (1900). Another work of Ibn Ṭufail, theKitāb Asrār ul-Hikma ul-mashraqīyya(“Secrets of Eastern Science”), was published at Bulāq (1882); cf. S. Munk,Mélanges(1859), pp. 410 sqq., and T. J. de Boer,Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam(Stuttgart, 1901), pp. 160 sqq. (also an English translation).

(G. W. T.)

IBN USAIBI‘A[Muwaffaquddīn Abū-l-’Abbās Aḥmad ibn ul-Qāsim ibn Abī Usaibi’a] (1203-1270), Arabian physician, was born at Damascus, the son of an oculist, and studied medicine at Damascus and Cairo. In 1236 he was appointed by Saladin physician to a new hospital in Cairo, but surrendered the appointment the following year to take up a post given him by the amir of Damascus in Salkhad near that city. There he lived and died. He wrote ‘Uyūn ul-Anba‘fī Ṭabaqāt ul-Aṭibba‘ or “Lives of the Physicians,” which in its first edition (1245-1246) was dedicated to the vizier of Damascus. This he enlarged, though it is uncertain whether the new edition was made public in the lifetime of the author.

Edition by A. Müller (Königsberg, 1884).

(G. W. T.)

IBO,a district of British West Africa, on the lower Niger immediately above the delta, and mainly on the eastern bank of the river. The chief town, frequently called by the same name (more correctly Abo or Áboh), lies on a creek which falls into the main stream about 150 m. from its mouth and contains from 6000 to 8000 inhabitants. The Ibo are a strong well-built Negro race. Their women are distinguished by their embonpoint. The language of the Ibo is one of the most widely spoken on the lower Niger. The Rev. J. F. Schön began its reduction in 1841, and in 1861 he published a grammar (Oku Ibo Grammatical Elements, London, Church Miss. Soc.). (SeeNigeria.)

IBRAHĪM AL-MAUṢILĪ(742-804), Arabian singer, was born of Persian parents settled in Kufa. In his early years his parents died and he was trained by an uncle. Singing, not study, attracted him, and at the age of twenty-three he fled to Mosul, where he joined a band of wild youths. After a year he went to Rai (Rei, Rhagae), where he met an ambassador of the caliph Manṣūr, who enabled him to come to Baṣra and take singing lessons. His fame as a singer spread, and the caliph Mahdī brought him to the court. There he remained a favourite under Hādī, while Harūn al-Rashīd kept him always with him until his death, when he ordered his son (Ma’mūn) to say the prayer over his corpse. Ibrahīm, as might be expected, was no strict Moslem. Two or three times he was knouted and imprisoned for excess in wine-drinking, but was always taken into favour again. His powers of song were far beyond anything else known at the time. Two of his pupils, his son Isḥāq and Muḥāriq, attained celebrity after him.

See the Preface to W. Ahlwardt’sAbu Nowas(Greifswald, 1861), pp. 13-18, and the many stories of his life in theKitāb ul-Aghāni, v. 2-49.

(G. W. T.)

IBRAHIM PASHA(1789-1848), Egyptian general, is sometimes spoken of as the adopted son of Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt. He is also and more commonly called his son. He was born in his father’s native town, Kavala in Thrace. During his father’s struggle to establish himself in Egypt, Ibrahim, then sixteen years of age, was sent as a hostage to the Ottoman capitan pasha (admiral), but when Mehemet Ali was recognized as pasha, and had defeated the English expedition under General A. M. Fraser, he was allowed to return to Egypt. When Mehemet Ali went to Arabia to prosecute the war against the Wahhabis in 1813, Ibrahim was left in command in Upper Egypt. He continued the war with the broken power of the Mamelukes, whom he suppressed. In 1816 he succeeded his brother Tusun in command of the Egyptian forces in Arabia. Mehemet Ali had already begun to introduce European discipline into his army, and Ibrahim had probably received some training, but his first campaign was conducted more in the old Asiaticstyle than his later operations. The campaign lasted two years, and terminated in the destruction of the Wahhabis as a political power. Ibrahim landed at Yembo, the port of Medina, on the 30th of September 1816. The holy cities had been recovered from the Wahhabis, and Ibrahim’s task was to follow them into the desert of Nejd and destroy their fortresses. Such training as the Egyptian troops had received, and their artillery, gave them a marked superiority in the open field. But the difficulty of crossing the desert to the Wahhabi stronghold of Deraiya, some 400 m. east of Medina, and the courage of their opponents, made the conquest a very arduous one. Ibrahim displayed great energy and tenacity, sharing all the hardships of his army, and never allowing himself to be discouraged by failure. By the end of September 1818 he had forced the Wahhabi leader to surrender, and had taken Deraiya, which he ruined. On the 11th of December 1819 he made a triumphal entry into Cairo. After his return he gave effective support to the Frenchman, Colonel Sève (Suleiman Pasha), who was employed to drill the army on the European model. Ibrahim set an example by submitting to be drilled as a recruit. When in 1824 Mehemet Ali was appointed governor of the Morea by the sultan, who desired his help against the insurgent Greeks, he sent Ibrahim with a squadron and an army of 17,000 men. The expedition sailed on the 10th of July 1824, but was for some months unable to do more than come and go between Rhodes and Crete. The fear of the Greek fire ships stopped his way to the Morea. When the Greek sailors mutinied from want of pay, he was able to land at Modon on the 26th of February 1825. He remained in the Morea till the capitulation of the 1st of October 1828 was forced on him by the intervention of the Western powers. Ibrahim’s operations in the Morea were energetic and ferocious. He easily defeated the Greeks in the open field, and though the siege of Missolonghi proved costly to his own troops and to the Turks who operated with him, he brought it to a successful termination on the 24th of April 1826. The Greek guerrilla bands harassed his army, and in revenge he desolated the country and sent thousands of the inhabitants into slavery in Egypt. These measures of repression aroused great indignation in Europe, and led first to the intervention of the English, French and Russian squadrons (seeNavarino, Battle of), and then to the landing of a French expeditionary force. By the terms of the capitulation of the 1st of October 1828, Ibrahim evacuated the country. It is fairly certain that the Turkish government, jealous of his power, had laid a plot to prevent him and his troops from returning to Egypt. English officers who saw him at Navarino describe him as short, grossly fat and deeply marked with smallpox. His obesity did not cause any abatement of activity when next he took the field. In 1831, his father’s quarrel with the Porte having become flagrant, Ibrahim was sent to conquer Syria. He carried out his task with truly remarkable energy. He took Acre after a severe siege on the 27th of May 1832, occupied Damascus, defeated a Turkish army at Homs on the 8th of July, defeated another Turkish army at Beilan on the 29th of July, invaded Asia Minor, and finally routed the grand vizier at Konia on the 21st of December. The convention of Kutaiah on the 6th of May left Syria for a time in the hands of Mehemet Ali. Ibrahim was undoubtedly helped by Colonel Sève and the European officers in his army, but his intelligent docility to their advice, as well as his personal hardihood and energy, compare most favourably with the sloth, ignorance and arrogant conceit of the Turkish generals opposed to him. He is entitled to full credit for the diplomatic judgment and tact he showed in securing the support of the inhabitants, whom he protected and whose rivalries he utilized. After the campaign of 1832 and 1833 Ibrahim remained as governor in Syria. He might perhaps have administered successfully, but the exactions he was compelled to enforce by his father soon ruined the popularity of his government and provoked revolts. In 1838 the Porte felt strong enough to renew the struggle, and war broke out once more. Ibrahim won his last victory for his father at Nezib on the 24th of June 1839. But Great Britain and Austria intervened to preserve the integrity of Turkey. Their squadrons cut his communications by sea with Egypt, a general revolt isolated him in Syria, and he was finally compelled to evacuate the country in February 1841. Ibrahim spent the rest of his life in peace, but his health was ruined. In 1846 he paid a visit to western Europe, where he was received with some respect and a great deal of curiosity. When his father became imbecile in 1848 he held the regency till his own death on the 10th of November 1848.

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