19 - Ibn al-Khaṭīb

Summary

The great Andalusi polymath and statesman Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd al-Salamānī, better known as Lisān al-Dīn ibn al- Khaṭīb, was a bright star in the pleiad of great minds of his age, which consisted of such luminaries as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Yaḥyā ibn Khaldūn, Ibn Marzūq, Ibn Baṭṭūta, and Ibn Zamrak. He was born in 713/1313 in the town of Loja of a family of Arab notables, whose members had traditionally been employed in the religious and civil service of Andalusi rulers (al-Maqqarī 5:50). When Ibn al-Khaṭīb was only several weeks old, his father was invited to take a high post at the court of the new emir of Granada, Ismāʿīl I (r. 713/1314–725/1325), and the family moved to the capital. In Granada, Ibn al- Khaṭīb received an excellent education under the guidance of the best scholars of the epoch, whose biographies he gratefully included in his works (al-Maqqarī 5:189–251, 350–603). He studied a broad variety of subjects: Arabic language and grammar, sharia and exegesis, adab and poetry, medicine and falsafa, history, and Sufism. Ibn al-Khaṭīb’s breadth of background is mirrored in a dazzling multiplicity of the topics treated in his writings. His vast knowledge, noble pedigree, and the high post of his father, combined with his unique literary talent and extraordinary memory, destined him for a splendid career at the Granadine court.