Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān (22 September 1211 – 30 October 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a renowned Kurdish Islamic historian who compiled the celebrated biographical encyclopedia of Muslim scholars and important men in Muslim history, Deaths of Eminent Men and the Sons of the Epoch. Due to this achievement, he is regarded as the most eminent writer of biographies in Islamic history.

Life

Ibn Khallikān was born in Erbil on 22 September 1211 (11 Rabī’ al-Thānī, 608), into a family that claimed descent from Barmakids, an Iranian dynasty from Balkh. His primary studies took him from Erbil, to Aleppo and to Damascus, before he took up jurisprudence in Mosul and then in Cairo, where he settled. He gained prominence as a jurist, theologian and grammarian. An early biographer described him as "a pious man, virtuous, and learned; amiable in temper, in conversation serious and instructive. His exterior was highly prepossessing, his countenance handsome and his manners engaging." He married in 1252 and was assistant to the chief judge in Egypt until 1261, when he assumed the position of chief judge in Damascus. He lost this position in 1271 and returned to Egypt, where he taught until being reinstated as judge in Damascus in 1278. He retired in 1281 and died in Damascus on 30 October 1282 (Saturday, 26th of Rajab 681).