A Biographical Sketch

Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī: A Biographical Sketch Sean Anthony and Matthew S. Gordon Historians of the early Islamic world have long recognized the importance of the historical and geographical works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī. The earliest printed editions were published in Europe in the latter half of the nine- teenth century. The Arabic text of al-Yaʿqūbī’s Taʾrīkh (History) was first edited by Martijn Theodor Houtsma and published by Brill in 1883.1 Several reprints appeared in the Arab world after the publication of Houtsma’s edition, the two most widely used published in Beirut (Dār Ṣādir, 1960) and Najaf (al-Maktaba al-Ḥaydariyya, 1964). The incomplete Arabic text of al-Yaʿqūbī’s geographical work, the Kitāb al-Buldān (The Book of Countries), was edited by M. J. de Goeje, with quotations from fragments discovered in other works.2 De Goeje published the edition in 1892, also with Brill, in volume vii of his groundbreaking series of Arabic geographical treatises, the Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabico- rum (bga).3 The Taʾrīkh and the Kitāb al-Buldān remain indispensable staples of the source material utilized in the modern study of Islamic history.4 The works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ date to the third/ninth century and, therefore, represent some of the earliest historical and geographical writings to survive in Arabic literature. Not only does his corpus contain early specimens of these categories of Arabic writing, it is also of an exceptional quality. His chronicle endeavors to do no less than cover the entire stretch of human history, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the dramas of early Islamic history and the political fortunes of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate and the luminaries who served the 1 Ibn Wāḍiḥ qui dicitur al-Jaʿqūbī Historiae, 2 vols. For a discussion of the manuscripts of this work, see Everett Rowson’s essay in this volume and T. M. Johnstone, “An Early Manuscript,” 189–195. 2 The present translation of the work includes two new sets of fragments not identified by de Goeje. 3 De Goeje had already published portions of the Buldān as part of his Ph.D. thesis (Leiden University, 1860). See Jan Just Witkam, “Michael Jan de Goeje,” 4. The following year, however, the first edition of the Buldān was published by T. G. J. Juynboll, Kitāboʾl-boldān (Sive librum regionum) (Leiden: Brill, 1861). All citations of the Buldān hereafter refer to de Goeje’s edition published in the bga. 4 Less influential is al-Yaʿqūbī’s brief treatise, Mushākalat al-nās li-zamānihim, which was discovered and edited by William G. Millward (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd, 1962). Millward produced a translation of the work in 1964 (“The Adaptation of Men”). Michael Fishbein’s new translation appears in this volume. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004364141_003 10 anthony and gordon dynasty in his own day. If his corpus is relatively small compared to the writings of his peers, among them the historians al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892) and al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), it is rarely derivative. And al-Yaʿqūbī’s voice is distinct. Unlike al-Ṭabarī, for example, a paragon of early Sunnī historiography, al-Yaʿqūbī in his chronicle reflects a worldview that modern scholars have occasionally characterized as recognizably Shiʿite. His work, however, defies such facile sectarian categorization.5 A keen observer of ʿAbbāsid society, al-Yaʿqūbī offers penetrating and discerning descriptions of the political, cultural, and geographical landscape of his own era. His is the perspective of a man whose ken is the endlessly fascinating, and often perilous, world of the ʿAbbāsid-era bureaucrat and writer. Sadly, despite the significance of his work, there is little that can be known for certain about al-Yaʿqūbī and his life. His family history and personal biog- raphy have long been recognized as difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct with certainty. Prior attempts by modern historians to do so have been characterized by frequent missteps, as recent scholarship has made clear.6 So, for example, the statements that he was born in Baghdad and that he spent his childhood in Armenia appear to be little more than informed guesses.7 It would be best to begin by letting Ibn Wāḍiḥ speak for himself. In a rare and fragmentary autobiographical note that begins his Kitāb al-Buldān, he gives us our best insight into his life and the sort of experience that shaped his work. He represents himself as follows: When I was in the prime of youth, possessed of an adventurous spirit and a sharp mind, I took an interest in reports about countries and about the distance from one country to another; for I had traveled since childhood, and my travels had continued uninterruptedly and had taken me to distant places. So whenever I met someone from those countries, I asked him about his homeland and its major city8 … Then I verified 5 The question is addressed in more detail in S. W. Anthony, “Was Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī a Shiʿite Historian?” 6 See Elton Daniel, “Al-Yaʿqūbī and Shiʿism Reconsidered,” 209–231, and Anthony, “Was Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī a Shiʿite Historian?” 7 The first statement appears to have originated with Gaston Wiet. See the introduction to his French translation of the Kitāb al-Buldān (Les Pays), viii, xvi. It is repeated by Muhammad Qasim Zaman in his article on al-Yaʿqūbī in the ei2. The second comment, regarding Armenia, was perhaps first made by Carl Brockelmann: see his brief comments on al-Yaʿqūbī in the Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (gal), 2nd edition, 226–227. 8 De Goeje read the Arabic term as miṣr—understood here in the sense of administrative.

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