Muḥammad ibn al-Ḳāsim al-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḳāsim al-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī al-Mālikī[1] (fl. 1365–1373) was a Muslim historian and native of Alexandria in the tradition of secular local historiography.[2] He wrote a three-volume history ostensibly of the Cypriot-led crusade that sacked his city in October 1365, to which he was an eyewitness.[3] In fact, as his contemporary Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsḳalānī noted, the Kitāb al-Ilmām fīmā jarat bihi ʾl-aḥkām al-maḳḍiyya fī wāḳiʿat al-Iskandariyya mostly meanders through the earlier history of the city, leaving little room for the crusade with which he begins.[4] It includes the story of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, and even many events unrelated to the city.[5] It was written between AH 767 (AD 1365–56) and 775 (1373–74).[3] The dates of al-Nuwayrī's birth and death are unknown.[6] There is a manuscript copy of al-Masʿūdī's Murūj in al-Nuwayrī's handwriting.[7]
The Kitāb al-Ilmām was edited in six volumes by Aziz Atiya between 1968 and 1973.[3] Atiya regards al-Nuwayrī as the most important historian for the crusade of 1365 from the Egyptian perspective.[8]
Notes
- For the spelling, see Bosworth 1995; Rosenthal 1968, pp. 458–59, uses Muḥammad ibn Qāsim ibn Muḥammad an-Nuwayrī as-Sikandarī al-Mālikī.
- Bosworth 1995; Rosenthal 1968, p. 155.
- Bosworth 1995.
- Bosworth 1995; Rosenthal 1968, pp. 458–59. Ibn Ḥajar's accurate description is repeated also by al-Sakhāwī.
- Rosenthal 1968, p. 155.
- See Bosworth 1995 and Rosenthal 1968, pp. 458–59, but Van Steenbergen 2003, pp. 124–25, places his death in Alexandria in 1372.
- Rosenthal 1968, pp. 458–59.
- Van Steenbergen 2003, p. 123.
Bibliography
- Atiya, Aziz Suryal (1977). A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedist from Alexandria: A Critical and Analytical Study of al-Nuwairy al-Iskandarāni's "Kitāb al-Ilmām". Middle East Center, University of Utah.
- Bosworth, C. E. (1995). "al-Nuwayrī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḳāsim". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume VIII: Ned–Sam (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 155. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.
- Rosenthal, Franz (1968). A History of Muslim Historiography (2nd ed.). E. J. Brill.
- Van Steenbergen, Jo (2003). "The Alexandrian Crusade (1365) and the Mamlūk Sources: Reassessment of the Kitāb al-Ilmām of an-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī (d. A.D. 1372)" (PDF). In K. Ciggaar; H. G. B. Teule (eds.). East and West in the Crusader States: Context – Contacts – Confrontations. Peeters. pp. 123–137. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-10-18.
- Wrisley, David Joseph (2012). "Historical Narration and Digression in al-Nuwairī al-Iskandarānī's Kitāb al-Ilmām". In Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski; Kiril Petkov (eds.). Philippe de Mézières and His Age: Piety and Politics in the Fourteenth Century. Brill. pp. 451–473. doi:10.1163/9789004211445_023. ISBN 9789004211445.