Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Tanūkhī (), commonly known as al-ʿAẓīmī (1090–post-1161) was an

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

chronicler of the history of

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

. Al-Azimi was a poet and school master in

. He was a contemporary of the Aleppine historians Hamdan ibn Abd al-Rahim al-Atharibi and Ali ibn Abdu-illah ibn Abi Jarada. He belonged to the

Tanukhid The Tanukh (, sometimes referred to as the Tanukhids (, ), was an Arab tribal group whose history in the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent spanned the 2nd century CE to the 17th century. The group began as a confederation of Arab tribes ...

tribe. Al-Azimi authored a general annals of history of

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

beginning from the year 1063 and ending 1143/44 called ''Al Muwassal 'ala al-Asl al-Mu'assal''. This work was published by

Claude Cahen Claude Cahen (26 February 1909 – 18 November 1991) was a 20th-century French Marxist orientalist and historian. He specialized in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages, Muslim sources about the Crusades, and social history of the medieval Isla ...

as ''La Chronique abrégée d'al-ʿAẓīmī'' in the French ''Journal asiatique'' in 1938. Al-Azimi also composed the influential ''Ta'rikh Halab'' (The History of Aleppo), which was a frequent source for the later histories of Aleppo by

Ibn al-Adim Kamāl al-Dīn Abū ʾl-Ḳāsim ʿUmar ibn Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh Ibn al-ʿAdīm (1192–1262; ) was an Arab biographer and historian from Aleppo. He is best known for his work ''Bughyat al-Talab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab'' (; ''Everything Desirabl ...

and Ibn Abi Tayyi. According to Cahen,

The interest of the portions of al-'Azimi's work which have been preserved does not reside in their intrinsic value, but rather in the fact that they are the only texts which escaped the destruction of North Syrian historiography between the middle of the 5th/9th century and that of the 6th/12th century; they thus enable us, to a certain extent, to complete or criticise the great works of the following century, on which we are dependent for the history of this period, by bringing us closer to their sources: a necessary test in view of the changes which had taken place in the meantime in the Syrian moral and social climate.

Most of al-Azimi's work have been lost, with the exception of the portions published by Cahen. According to the Syrian historian Suhayl Zakkar, despite what little survives, the information al-Azimi provides is "very valuable" for the history of Aleppo in the 11th century. Part of his work covers the reigns of the Mirdasid princes of Aleppo

Shibl al-Dawla Nasr Abu Kamil Nasr ibn Salih ibn Mirdas () (died 22 May 1038), also known by his (honorific epithet) of Shibl al-Dawla ('Lion cub of the Dynasty'), was the second Mirdasid dynasty, Mirdasid emir of Aleppo, ruling between May 1029 until his death. He ...

Mu'izz al-Dawla Thimal Abu Ulwan Thimal ibn Salih ibn Mirdas (; died 1062), also known by his ''laqab'' (honorific epithet) Mu'izz al-Dawla (), was the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo jointly with his elder brother Shibl al-Dawla Nasr in 1029–1030 and then solely in 1042–1 ...

and

Rashid al-Dawla Mahmud Abu Salama Mahmud ibn Nasr ibn Salih , also known by his ''laqab'' (honorific epithet) Rashid al-Dawla, was the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo from 1060 to 1061 and again from 1065 until his death. He was the son of Shibl al-Dawla Nasr and the Numayrid p ...

, their relations with the

Fatimid Caliphate The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, i ...

, the collapse of the dynasty, the rise of the first

Seljuk Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * S ...

ruler of Aleppo

Aq Sunqur al-Hajib Abu Said Aq Sunqur al-Hajib (full name: ''Qasim ad-Dawla Aksungur al-Hajib'') was the Seljuk governor of Aleppo under Sultan Malik Shah I. He was beheaded in 1094 following accusations of treason by Tutush I, the Seljuk Turkish ruler of Damasc ...

, and the era of the

Zengid The Zengid or Zangid dynasty, also referred to as the Atabegate of Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus (Arabic: أتابكة الموصل وحلب ودمشق), or the Zengid State (Old Anatolian Turkish: , Modern Turkish: ; ) was initially an '' Atabegat ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Azimi 1090 births 1160s deaths 12th-century Arabic-language writers 12th-century Syrian historians History of Aleppo Mirdasid emirate of Aleppo Academics from Aleppo Tanukh