Imad al-Din al-Isfahani

Imad ad-Din Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Safi ad-Din Muhammad al-Isfahani ( Arabic عماد الدين أبو عبد الله محمد بن صافي الدين محمد الأصفهاني, DMG ʿImād ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ṣafī ad-Dīn Muḥammad al-Iṣfahānī ; * July 6, 1125 in Isfahan ; † June 4, 1201 in Damascus ), also under the surname al-Katib ( Arabic آل كاتب, DMG al-Kātib  'the scribe / secretary'), was a chronicler and official in the service of the Abbasid caliphs , the Zengid emirs and, most recently, the Ayyubid sultans .

biography

Imad ad-Din was born in Isfahan , Persian , but received his training in law and fine literature at a Nizamiya school in Baghdad . He wrote all of his works in Arabic . As protégé of the vizier Yahya ibn Hubayra , he got a job in the administration of the cities of Basra and Wasit . After the vizier's death in 1165, like many of his followers, he fell out of favor and was imprisoned at the caliph's court. In 1167, Imad al-Din began a steep career in the administration of the Zengidenemir Nur al-Din Mahmud in Damascus . After a job in his office, he became a financial advisor in the treasury and eventually a diplomatic negotiator for the ruler. In 1172 he was appointed one of the scholars of law at the law school founded by the emir in Damascus. With the death of the emir in 1174, Imad ad-Din lost another sponsor, whereupon his career came to an abrupt end, which led him to retreat to Mosul , where he became seriously ill.

During his time at the Abbasid court in Baghdad, Imad ad-Din made the acquaintance of the Kurdish general Ayyub († 1173), who was also a confidante of the vizier Ibn Hubayra and who after his death fell out of favor and then went to Damascus. Apparently, this is how Imad ad-Din made the acquaintance of Ayyub's son Salah ad-Din (Saladin) Yusuf . He had used the death of his old employer Nur ad-Din Mahmud as an excuse to oust his sons from rule over Syria , after he had subjugated Egypt in 1171 . From 1176 Imad ad-Din was in the service of Saladin, to whom he owed a new career in the administration of Damascus and whom he also accompanied on all of his campaigns against the Christians of the Kingdom of Jerusalem . He was an eyewitness to the battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187, the conquest of Jerusalem on October 2, 1187 and the following third crusade (1189-1192). Many of the accounts of those historical events that are still known today come from the observations of Imad ad-Din, such as the beheading of Renaud de Châtillon by Saladin, or the struggle and surrender of the Christians of Jerusalem under Balian of Ibelin . He had not spared criticism of Saladin, whose benevolent treatment of the beaten Christians he did not consider to be justified.

After Saladin's death in 1193, Imad ad-Din only devoted himself to his literary work in Damascus and died there on June 4, 1201.

Works

1. Nuṣrat al-fatra wa-ʿuṣrat al-fiṭra ("The victory over languor and the refuge of the disposition"): a chronicle on the history of the Seljuk Empire, which is based on the no longer existing administrative records of Anuschirwan al-Kashani († ~ 1137 / 39) is based. Just like this one, this work is no longer preserved, but it is from al-Bundari († 1241/42) in his work Zubdat al-Nuṣra wa-nuḫbat al-ʿUṣra (“The cream of victory and the selection from the refuge “) Were summarized.
2. al-Barq aš-Šāmī ("The Syrian Lightning"): Imad ad-Din's main work comprised at least seven, maybe nine volumes, of which only the volumes three (1177–1179) and five (1182–1183) have survived. This work is a comprehensive diary of the author in which he documented in autobiographical form his observations on the work of Nur ad-Din and Saladin in the years 1167 to 1193. To this he added copies of official documents and private correspondence. This work quickly gained wide distribution and was used by authors such as Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233), al-Bundari († 1241/42) and Abu Shama († 1276) as the primary source for their works.
3. al-Fatḥ al-qussī fī l-fatḥ al-qudsī ("Ciceronian eloquence regarding the conquest of Jerusalem"): A description of Saladin's war against the Christians. The only completely preserved work by the author.

All of his writings are full of alliteration, metaphors and puns, flowery and very artificial.

Movie

In the US film Kingdom of Heaven (2005) by Ridley Scott , the strongly fictionalized role of Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani was played by the actor Alexander Siddig .

literature

• HAR Gibb : Al-Barq al-Shāmī: The History of Saladin by the Kātib ʿImād ad-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī. In: Viennese magazine for the customer of the Orient. Vol. 52 (1953), pp. 93-115.
• Yaacov Lev: Saladin in Egypt. BRILL 1998, pp. 26-30.
• Nasser O. Rabbat: My Life with Salah al-Din: The Memoirs of 'Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani. In: Edebiyat: Journal Of Middle Eastern Literatures. 7: 267-287 (1997).
• Lutz Richter-Bernburg : Sparks from the cold flint: ʿImād ad-Dīn al-Kātib al-Iṣfahānī (I). In: The World of the Orient. Vol. 20/21 (1989/1990), pp. 121-166.
• Lutz Richter-Bernburg: Sparks from the cold flint: ʿImād ad-Dīn al-Kātib al-Iṣfahānī (II). In: The World of the Orient. 22: 105-141 (1991).