Yaqut al-Hamawi

Muslim scholar
Yaqut ibn-'Abdullah al-Rumi al-Hamawi
Title Al Hamawi
Born 1179
Died 1229
Region Syria
Main interests Islamic history

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

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History

Yaqut was a Greek sold as a slave to someone who later moved to Baghdad, Iraq. He was one of the last scholars who accessed to the libraries east of the Caspian Sea before Mongol invasion of Central Asia. He travelled to the peaceful scholarly city of ancient Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. There Yaqut spent two years in libraries, learning much of the knowledge he would later use in his works.[1]

Works

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