Yaqut al-Hamawi

Yaqut ibn-'Abdullah al-Rumi al-Hamawi
Born	1179
Died	1229
Era	12th century-13th century
Region	Syria
Religion	Islam
Main interest(s)	Islamic history

Yāqūt ibn-'Abdullah al-Rūmī al-Hamawī (1179–1229) (Arabic: ياقوت الحموي الرومي‎‎) was an Arab biographer and geographer of Greek origin, renowned for his encyclopedic writings on the Muslim world. The nisba "al-Rumi" ("from Rûm") refers to his Greek (Byzantine) descent; "al-Hamawi" is taken after his master's name; and ibn-Abdullah is a reference to his father's name, Abdullah. The word yāqūt means ruby or hyacinth.

Born in Constantinople, Yāqūt became a slave of a trader named Askar ibn Abi Nasr al-Hamawi who lived in Baghdad, Iraq. His master taught him accounting and trading and sent him to trade on his behalf.

He travelled two or three times to Kish in the Persian Gulf. In 1194 he quarrelled with his master and had to support himself by copying; he took advantage of the opportunity of studying under the grammarian Al-‘Ukbarî. After five years he returned to his old master and again travelled for him to Kish; on his return he set up for himself as a bookseller and began to write.

Yāqūt was one of the last scholars who had access to the libraries east of the Caspian Sea before the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, and during the next ten years he travelled in Persia, Syria, and Egypt, and visited the peaceful scholarly city of ancient Merv in present-day Turkmenistan, where he spent two years in libraries, learning much of the knowledge he would later use in his works. He also travelLed to Balkh, Mosul and Aleppo. About 1222 he settled in Mosul and worked on his geography, the first draft of which was ready in 1224. After a journey to Alexandria in 1227 he went to Aleppo, where he died in 1229.

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