ياقوت الحموي

ياقوت الحموي

1179 عیسوی · 575 ھ – 1229 عیسوی · 626 ھ

A geographer and lexicographer, author of Mu'jam al-Buldan and Mu'jam al-Udaba'. Sold young from Byzantine lands to a Baghdad merchant who freed him; he copied books for hire, traded in them, fled Damascus in 613 when a defence of Ali nearly cost his life, then fled the Tatars at Khwarazm 'like one risen from his grave on Judgement Day', settling outside Aleppo. His books he endowed to the Zaydi mosque at Darb Dinar, Baghdad, delivered to Ibn al-Athir himself; late in life he took the name Ya'qub ¹.