The Works of Ibn Wadih al-Ya'qubi

Reviewed by: Ahmad Khan, American University in Cairo, Egypt

Published by: Brill, Leiden 2018, ISBN: 9789004356207.

The book under review is the second volume of a fine three-volume translation of the surviving corpus of Ibn Wadih al-Yaqubi, an important historian who died in the first decade of the tenth century. Al- Yaqubi was known by medieval biographers to have composed four works: Kitab al-Ta’rikh, Kitab Asma’ al-Buldan, Kitab fi akhbar al-Umam al-Salifah, and Kitab Mushakalat al-Nas Li-zamanihim Wa-ma Yaghlibu [Alayhim fi Kull Asr.1 Remarkably, all four works seem to have reached us and now, for the first time, have been made accessible to an English readership.

Little is known about the details of al-Yaqubi’s personal life. Writing during the reign of the [Abbasids, al-Yaqubi was himself a client of the Banu Hashim to which the [Abbasids traced their lineage. He seems to have thrived under their rule in Baghdad and Isfahan. He found himself residing in Egypt under the Tulunids; and indeed his works are rich with references to Egypt’s political, economic, and administrative history. But, as the editors point out in their introduction, al-Yaqubi was quick to celebrate [Abbasid victory over the Tulunids, indicating either where his dynastic loyalties always lay, or his efforts to ally with the reigning imperial family.