Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ash-Shaybānī, better known as ʿAlī ʿIzz ad-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr al-Jazarī (1160–1233) was a Hadith expert, historian, and biographer who wrote in Arabic and was from the Ibn Athir family. At the age of twenty-one he settled with his father in Mosul to continue his studies, where he devoted himself to the study of history and Islamic tradition.

Biography

Ibn al-Athir belonged to the Shayban lineage of the large and influential Arab tribe Banu Bakr, who lived across upper Mesopotamia, and gave their name to the city of Diyar Bakr. He was the brother of Majd ad-Dīn and Diyā' ad-Dīn Ibn Athir. Al-Athir lived a scholarly life in Mosul, often visited Baghdad and for a time traveled with Saladin's army in Syria. He later lived in Aleppo and Damascus. His chief work was a history of the world, al-Kamil fi at-Tarikh (The Complete History).

Death

Ibn al-Athir died in 1232/1233, and was buried in a cemetery in Mosul, at the district of Bab Sinjar. His tomb was built in the 20th century and was located in the middle of a road, after the cemetery was cleared for modernization. It became a site of an erroneous legend, which identified it as a tomb of a female mystic. However, the government later installed a marble stele to indicate that it was Ibn al-Athir's tomb. His tomb was also regarded in local Yazidi folklore as being the grave of a girl who married the Emir of Mosul but died of poisoning. The tomb of Ibn al-Athir was bulldozed by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in June 2014.

Works