Chihab Al-Umari

Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad b. Faḍl Allāh al-'Umarī (شهاب الدين أبو العبّاس أحمد بن فضل الله العمري), or simply al-‘Umarī, (1300 – 1349) was an Arab historian, born in Damascus. Born as a scion of a family of bureaucrats, al-ʿUmarī (as his name implies), traced his origin to ʿUmar, the second Islamic caliph. His father held the important post of kātib as-sirr (head of the chancery) of the Mamlūk Empire. During his life, his scholarly works and writings were used in the administration of the Mamlūk Empire's dominions of Egypt and Syria, and later became standard sources for Mamlūk history.

Al-ʿUmarī began his tumultuous career working as an assistant to his father who was the head of the chancery of the Mamlūk Empire. However, as he continued his career in civil service, he found that his temperament was ill-suited to the position and made many political enemies. Al-'Umarī soon realized that he was much too independent minded and politically active for a stable career in bureaucracy. In c.1337 he was dismissed from office and imprisoned. However, after the death of his father in 1337, his brother was appointed as head of the chancery who showed favor to al-ʿUmarī. In 1339 al-ʿUmarī was released from prison and appointed to his father’s old post, but in 1342 he again was banished from office and replaced by another one of his brothers.

During his life, al-Umari visited Cairo shortly after the Malian Mansa Kankan Musa I's pilgrimage to Mecca, and his writings are considered to be one of the primary sources for this legendary hajj. In particular, al-Umari recorded that the Mansa dispensed so much gold that its value fell in Egypt for a decade afterward, a story that is often repeated in describing the wealth of the Mali Empire. Al-Umari also recorded Kankan Musa's stories of the previous mansa; Kankan Musa claimed that the previous ruler had abdicated the throne to journey to a land across the ocean, leading contemporary Malian historian Gaoussou Diawara to theorize that Abubakari reached the Americas years before Christopher Columbus. Some of his work can be found in the Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History.

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