Three years among the waqf libraries of Marw, and the idea of the Mujam al-Buldan, 615/1218

ثلاث سنوات بين خزائن مرو الوقفية، وفكرة معجم البلدان، ٦١٥هـ/١٢١٨م

c. 1218 CE · 615 AH

Merv

Yaqut ended up at Marw and stayed three years among its famous libraries. In the Mujam he wrote: 'Had not the Tatars arrived and ruined those lands I would never have left it for all my life, for the kindness, gentleness and good company of its people and the wealth of reliable source books — I left it while it held ten waqf repositories whose like in quantity and quality I never saw in the world' 1. The idea of the Mujam al-Buldan came to him at Marw in 615/1218-19, during a course of his teacher Abu al-Muzaffar Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Sam'ani 2.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks
Region
Persia & Central Asia
Review
Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it

In time

121012201230 c.
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era

In space

Merv

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Summary

Yaqut reached Marw and stayed three years among its famous libraries 1. There, in 615/1218-19, the idea of compiling the Mujam al-Buldan came to him during a course of his teacher Abu al-Muzaffar Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Sam'ani, who let him into his family's two rich libraries 2.

Ten waqf repositories

In the Mujam he wrote: 'Had not the Tatars arrived and ruined those lands I would never have left it for all my life, for the kindness, gentleness and good company of its people and the wealth of reliable source books — I left it while it held ten waqf repositories whose like in quantity and quality I never saw in the world' 1. Among them were the libraries of the al-Sam'ani family, Sharaf al-Malik al-Mustawfi, Nizam al-Malik Muhammad b. Ishaq, the vizier Majd al-Malik, and the Amidiyya, Aziziyya, Khatuniyya, Kamaliyya and Damriyya foundations 3.

Connections

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Had participant
Yaqut al-Hamawi· ابن السمعاني
Occurred at
Merv

People and things also explored

Ibn al-Salah gathers the science of hadith in Khurasan: Nishapur and Marw, c. 605· Al-Sam'ani returns to Marw, marries, and his son 'Abd al-Rahim is born, 538/1143· al-Sam'ani· ابن السمعاني· Yaqut al-Hamawi· Abu Muslim Enters Marw and His Partisans Fall upon Mudar· Battle of Dandanqan (1040)· Battle of Merv

Sources

  1. Mawsu'at A'lam al-Ulama' wa-l-Adaba' al-Arab wa-l-Muslimin — Dar al-Jil / ALECSO , p. 278
  2. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 11 p. 265
  3. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 11 p. 264
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Three years among the waqf libraries of Marw, and the idea of the Mujam al-Buldan, 615/1218”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/yaqut-merv-615/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-02.

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People

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Related

Ibn al-Salah gathers the science of hadith in Khurasan: Nishapur and Marw, c. 605

Ibn al-Salah travelled to Khurasan, stayed a while and acquired the science of hadith there: at Nishapur he heard from Mansur al-Furawi, al-Mu'ayyad al-Tusi, al-Qasim b. al-Saffar and Zaynab al-Shi'riyya among others, and at Marw from Abu al-Muzaffar 'Abd al-Rahim b. al-Sam'ani, Muhammad b. Isma'il al-Mu'sawi and Abu Ja'far al-Sanji among others.