Muḥammad ibn al-Ḳāsim al-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī
Muslim Mamluk historian / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḳāsim al-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī al-Mālikī[1] (fl. 1365–1373) was a Muslim historian and native of Alexandria in the tradition of secular local historiography.[2] He wrote a three-volume history ostensibly of the Cypriot-led crusade that sacked his city in October 1365, to which he was an eyewitness.[3] In fact, as his contemporary Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsḳalānī noted, the Kitāb al-Ilmām fīmā jarat bihi ʾl-aḥkām al-maḳḍiyya fī wāḳiʿat al-Iskandariyya mostly meanders through the earlier history of the city, leaving little room for the crusade with which he begins.[4] It includes the story of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, and even many events unrelated to the city.[5] It was written between AH 767 (AD 1365–56) and 775 (1373–74).[3] The dates of al-Nuwayrī's birth and death are unknown.[6] There is a manuscript copy of al-Masʿūdī's Murūj in al-Nuwayrī's handwriting.[7]
The Kitāb al-Ilmām was edited in six volumes by Aziz Atiya between 1968 and 1973.[3] Atiya regards al-Nuwayrī as the most important historian for the crusade of 1365 from the Egyptian perspective.[8]