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ʾAbū al-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer.

Life

Ya'qubi was born in Baghdad to a family of noble background, his great-grandfather was Wadih, the freedman of the caliph Al-Mansur and ruler of Egypt during the reign of al-Mahdi. Until 873, he lived in Armenia and Khorasan, working under the patronage of the Tahirid Governors; then he traveled to India, Egypt and the Maghreb. In 872, he listed the kingdoms of Bilād as-Sūdān, including Ghana, Gao, and Kanem.

His methodical approach to writing history includes personal observations and interviews to close relations on topics that Yaqubi could not encounter first-hand. He covered topics of natural, human and economic geography as well as noting down cultural, historical and topographic information.

His sympathies with Ahl al-Bayt are found throughout his works.

He died in Egypt on AH 284 (897/8).

Works

• Ta'rikh ibn Wadih (Chronicle of Ibn Wadih)
• Kitab al-Buldan (Book of the Countries) - biology, contains a description of the Maghreb, with a full account of the larger cities and much topographical and political information (ed. M. de Goeje, Leiden, 1892).

Editions

• Gordon, Mathew S. and al. (2018). The Works Of Ibn Wāḍiḥ Al Yaʿqūbī. Brill. pp. Vol 1, 2, 3. ISBN 9789004364165.
• Ya'qubi (1861). A. W. T. Juynboll (ed.). Kitab al-Buldan (in Arabic). BRILL.

Notes

1. Arabic: أبو العباس أحمد بن أبي يعقوب بن جعفر بن وهب بن واضح اليعقوبي

References

1. "Muhammad's successor". www.ismaili.net. Archived from the original on 2006-11-26. Retrieved 2006-10-29.
2. ^ Ya'qubi at the Encyclopædia Britannica
3. ^ Zaman, Muhammad Qasim (1960–2009). The encyclopaedia of Islam. H. A. R. Gibb, P. J. Bearman (II. ed.). Leiden: Brill. pp. 257–258. ISBN 90-04-16121-X. OCLC 399624. Archived from the original on 2019-09-25. Retrieved 2021-10-08.
4. "Al-Yaʿqūbī | Arab historian and geographer". Archived from the original on 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
5. Universalis, Encyclopædia. "AL YA'QUBI". Encyclopædia Universalis. Archived from the original on 2021-05-09. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
6. "Al-Ya'qubi | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 2021-06-24. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
7. Thatcher 1911.
8. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Thatcher, Griffithes Wheeler (1911). "Ya'qūbī". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 904.
9. ^ Daly, Okasha El (2005). Egyptology: The Missing Millennium : Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. Psychology Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-1-84472-063-7.
10. Levtzion, Nehemia (1973). Ancient Ghana and Mali. New York: Methuen & Co Ltd. p. 3. ISBN 0841904316.
11. Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm, (E.J. Brill, 1996), 37.
12. "al-Yaʿqūbī | Arab historian and geographer | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2021-06-17.

External links

• 9th-century births
• 897 deaths
• Iraqi Shia Muslims
• 9th-century Arabic-language writers
• 9th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate
• 9th-century geographers
• 10th-century geographers
• Geographers from the Abbasid Caliphate
• Explorers of India
• Travel writers of the medieval Islamic world