Ibn al-Adim

Kamāl al-Dīn Abū ʾl-Ḳāsim ʿUmar ibn Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh Ibn al-ʿAdīm was an Arab biographer and historian from Aleppo. He is best known for his work Bughyat al-Talab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab, a multi-volume collection of biographies of famous men from Aleppo, introduced with a volume on the geography and traditions of the region. It is saved in part in manuscripts in the library of sultan Ahmed III in Topkapi Palace. He also published a chronicle version of the work, Zubdat al-Halab fi ta'arikh Halab, a copy of which reached the library of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and then the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and selections of which were published with Latin translation by Georg Freytag in 1819. His historical sources are various, some oral and some written, and two of the more famous are Usama ibn Munqidh and Ibn al-Qalanisi. Another work is a guide for the making of perfumes, Kitab al-Wuslat ila al-Habib fi Wasf al-Tayibat wal-tibb. He is an important source of knowledge on the Syrian Assassins, first analyzed by Silvester de Sacy.