Ibn al-Athir

(1160 - 1233)

The middle child of a family of Arab scholars—his older brother published a dictionary that clarified obscure terms spoken by the Prophet Muhammad; his younger brother was a noted literary critic who worked for Sultan Saladin—Ibn al-Athir was a historian whose Complete History tells the story of the world from its pre-Muhammadan beginnings to the year 1231. “Some would call him the only real Arab historian of the period,” wrote twentieth­-century Arabist Francesco Gabrieli.