Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib or Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Said ibn Ali ibn Ahmad al-Salmani (1313 (in Loja near Granada) -1374 (in Fez) was a poet, writer, historian, philosopher, physician and politician from Al-Andalus.^[1] Some of his poems decorate the walls ot the Alhambra in Granada.

Al-Khatib spent most of his life as vizir at the court of Muhammed V, but was exiled from Granada twice and lived for some time in the Marinid empire in Morocco (the first time 1360-62 and the second time 1371-74 in Ceuta and Tlemcen and Fez). He was murdered in 1374 in revenge of a private feud.

He excelled as a historian and he wrote excellent poetry some of which was put to music as muwashshahat.

His autobiography, written in 1369, is to be found in part of his his 'al-Ihata fi akhbar Gharnata' (The Complete Source on the History of Granada) ed. Muhammad Abd Allah Inan (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1978).

[edit] On the Plague

When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn al-Khatib wrote a treatise called On the Plague, in which he stated:^[2]

"The existence of contagion is established by experience, investigation, the evidence of the senses and trustworthy reports. These facts constitute a sound argument. The fact of infection becomes clear to the investigator who notices how he who establishes contact with the afflicted gets the disease, whereas he who is not in contact remains safe, and how transmission is affected through garments, vessels and earrings."

[edit] References

1. ^ Encyclopedia of Medieval Iberia, ed. Michael Gerli. (New York: Routledge, 2003), 416–417
2. ^ Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2002 (2): 2-9

[edit] External links

• Poem by Ibn al-Khatib sung by Fairuz [1] (click on the oval above the poem)
• Ibn al-Jatib (second part of the page is in English) [2]
• Website Ibn Kahldun: Ibn al-Khatib, retrieved on feb. 2, 2008 [3]
• Encyclopedia of medieval Iberia, Ibn al-Khatib, retrieved on feb. 2, 2008 [4]

[edit] Bibliography

• Jaysh Al-Tawshih of Lisan Al-Din Ibn Al-Khatib (Arabic), An Anthology of Andalusian Arabic Muwashshahat, Alan Jones (Editor), 1997 - ISBN 9780906094426
• Lisan Al Din Ibn Al Khatib, Tarikh Isbaniya Al Islamiya (history of Muslim Spain), ed. by Levi-Provencal, new edition, Cairo, 2004
• Lisan Al Din Ibn Al Khatib, Awsaf Al Nas (description of peoples), Cairo, 2002
• Lisan Al Din Ibn Al Khatib, Khaṭrat al-ṭayf : riḥlāt fī al-Maghrib wa-al-Andalus, 1347-1362, 2003
• Lisan Al Din Ibn Al Khatib, Nafadhat al-jirab (the Ashtray of the Socks)
• Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib homme de lettres et historien, by Abdelbaqui Benjamaa, (French) thesis, Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, 1992 (microform).

This biography of an academic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

This article about a Moroccan writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e