[IBN KHALLIKAN'S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY] Tercüme-i vefayatü'l-ayan li-Ibn Hallikan. 2 volumes set. Translated by Rodosizâde Mehmed

SHAMS AD-DÎN ABÛ AL-'ABBÂS AHMED IBN MUHAMMED IBN KHALLIKAN, (1211-1282).; Matbaa-i Âmire., Kostantiniyye (Istanbul), [AH 1280] = 1864.

Original decorative leather bdg. with five and four raised bands to spine. Seconds have lettering gilt. Traditional decorations on spines. Roy. 8vo. (23 x 16 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 2 volumes set: ([vi], 353 p.; [5], 361 p.). A well-preserved set.

First Ottoman edition of the famous Khallikan's biographical dictionary, is a valuable source for his contemporaries and contains excerpts from earlier Middle Eastern biographies no longer extant, translated by Mehmed [or Muhammed] Rodosîzâde (?-1701), who was an Ottoman scholar from Ayasulug of Smyrna, and son of an Ottoman statesman from Rhodes.

Muslim judge and author of a classic Arabic biographical dictionary. Ibn Khallikân studied in Irbîl, Aleppo, and Damascus. Ibn Khallikān was an assistant to the chief judge of Egypt until 1261 when he became "qâdî al-qudât" (i.e. chief judge) of Damascus. He adhered to the Shâfi'î branch of Muslim law, and for the first years had deputy judges of the other three main branches. In 1271 he was dismissed. He taught in Cairo until he regained his judgeship and returned to Damascus in 1278. Ibn Khallikân's fame rests on his biographical dictionary Wafayât al-a'yân wa-anbâ' abnâ' az-zamāân ('Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch'; trans. by Baron de Slane, Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, 1842-74). He began arranging material for it in 1256 and worked on it until 1274, continuing to improve it with marginal notes. He excluded the Prophet Muhammad, the caliphs, and other subjects about whom adequate information already existed. Ibn Khallikân selected factual material for his biographies with intelligence and scholarship and rounded them out with poetry and anecdotes. (Source: Encyclopediæ Britannica).

Hegira: 1280. Gregorian: 1864. Not located in OCLC libraries outside Turkey.; Özege 20691.