Ibn Khallikan

Shams al-Dīn Abū Al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Khallikān (Arabic: شمس الدين أبو العباس أحمد بن محمد بن خلكان‎‎, ) (September 22, 1211 – October 30, 1282) was a 13th Century Shafi'i Islamic scholar of Arab or Kurdish origin. He was described 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."

Ibn Khallikan was born in Arbil, Iraq on September 22, 1211, studied there and in Aleppo and Damascus. He also studied jurisprudence at Mosul and then settled in Cairo. He gained prominence as a jurist, theologian and grammarian. Ibn Khallikan married in the year 1252.

He was an assistant to the chief judge in Egypt until 1261 when he assumed the position of chief judge in Damascus. Ibn Khallikan was removed from this position in 1271, returned to Egypt and taught there until being reinstated as judge in Damascus in the year 1278. He retired from this position in 1281 and died in Damascus on October 30, 1282.

Ibn Khallikan's most renowned work is the biographical dictionary entitled Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān (Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch). He began compiling this work in 1256 and continued until 1274, referencing the works of earlier scholars. Deaths of Eminent Men does not include biographies of individuals already sufficiently covered, such as the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and the caliphs. This work has been translated into English by William McGuckin de Slane, (1801–1878), and is over 2,700 pages long. The British scholar Reynold A. Nicholson called it the "best general biography ever written".