Ibn al-Abbar, Muhammad ibn Abd Allah

Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abi Bakr al-Qudai al-Balansi, a historian, hadith scholar, philologist, man of letters and poet from Valencia in eastern al-Andalus, and author of The Supplement to the Book of Connection. ¹

Al-Maqqari says that when Valencia was besieged he wrote to the ruler of Ifriqiya asking for help, with a qasida that moved the ruler's compassion. The ruler ordered the poets of his court to answer it and loaded the fleets with reinforcements. He then returned with his family to Tunis after Valencia fell in 636 AH. ¹

Ibn Khaldun describes him as a scholar of hadith and of the Arabic language, eloquent in epistolary writing and poetry, who used to write the sultan Abu Zakariyya's mark at the head of his letters. Ibn Khaldun relates that al-Mustansir had him killed with spears in the middle of Muharram 658 AH. ²

The encyclopaedia says he was born in 595 AH (1199 CE) and died in 658 AH (1260 CE). ³