Ya'qubi

Ahmad ibn Abu Ya'qub ibn Ja'far ibn Wahb Ibn Wadih al-Ya'qubi (died 897/8), known as Ahmad al-Ya'qubi, or Ya'qubi, was a Muslim geographer and perhaps the first historian of world culture in the Abbasid Caliphate.

He was a great-grandson of Wadih, the freedman of the caliph Mansur. Until 873 he lived in Armenia and Khorasan, working under the patronage of the Iranian dynasty of the Tahirids; then he traveled to India, Egypt and the Maghreb, and died in Egypt. He died in AH 284 (897/8).

His Shia sympathies are found throughout his works.

In 872, he lists the kingdoms of Bilad el-Sudan, including Ghana, Gao, and Kanem.

• Ta'rikh ibn Wadih (Chronicle of Ibn Wadih)
• Kitab al-Buldan (Book of the Countries) - geography, contains a description of the Maghreb, with a full account of the larger cities and much topographical and political information (ed. M. de Goeje, Leiden, 1892).