Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani

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Muhammad ibn Safi ad-Din, more popularly known as Imad ad-din al-Isfahani (Arabic: عماد الدين الأصفهاني‎; (1125-June 20, 1201) (519-13 Ramadan 597), was a historian, scholar and man of letters during the Zengid and Ayyubid period.

He was born in Isfahan in the year 1125, and studied at the Nizamiyya school in Baghdad. He graduated into the bureaucracy, and held jurisdiction over Basra and Wasit. He then became a deputy of the vizier ibn Hubayra. After the death of ibn Hubayra, he went to Damascus in 1166 A.D. (562 Hijr) and entered the service of the qadi of Damascus, Kamal ad-Din. The qadi presented him to Nur ad-Din, who appointed him a professor in the school he had established there, which afterwards became known as the Imadiyya school in his honour. Nur ad-Din later appointed him chancellor.

After the death of Nur ad-Din in 1173, Imad ad-Din was removed from all his bureaucratic duties, and was banished from the palace. He went to live in Mosul and later entered the service of Saladin, the Egyptian Sultan during that time. When Saladin took control of Damascus, Saladin's vizier, al-Qadi al-Fadl, appointed him chancellor, and he also became al-Fadl's deputy. Saladin had been unsure of his talent because he was only a scribe, but he soon became one of the sultan's favourites, and was even granted his own slave girl. As chancellor he did not have to perform the everyday duties of the chancery scribes, and he had a lot of leisure time in Egypt. He visited the Pyramids and bought books from the sale of the Fatimid library, but he was also satirized as a drunk and a homosexual, the supposed lover of the singer al-Murtada.

From then on he accompanied Saladin on all his campaigns. After a certain raid, he was chosen to kill one of the prisoners, but the prisoner was a child and was instead exchanged for a Muslim prisoner held by the crusaders. He was present at the Battle of Marj Uyun, the Battle of Hattin, and the subsequent campaign to expel the crusaders from the Holy Land. At Acre, he criticized Saladin for giving away the city's treasure instead of spending it on the reconquest. At Beirut, he became ill, but was the only scribe capable of writing the terms of surrender. He had recuperated in time to see the aftermath of the Siege of Jerusalem, where he again criticized Saladin's generosity; he was also disgusted by those in charge of the ransom who took bribes, and the rich crusader nobles who took their treasures with them rather than ransoming the poor. He was present at Acre again during the Third Crusade when the Christians retook the city, and was among those who fled after the defeat.

After Saladin's death in 1193 he began writing his biographies of the sultan. He wrote the Kitab al-Barq al-Shami, which is lost, but was abridged by al-Bundari. He also wrote al-Fath al-Qussi fi-l-Fath al-Qudsi, which survives. He died in 1201.