Ibn Abi'l-Dam


Abū Ishāq Shīhāb al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥamawī better known as Ibn Abīʾl-Dam , was a medieval Syrian historian and the chief Islamic judge in his native Hama.

Life

Ibn Abi'l Dam was born in Hama in 1187 during Ayyubid rule of Syria. He was educated in the Abbasid capital of Baghdad and taught in the Ayyubid-held cities of Hama, Cairo and Aleppo before being appointed the qadi of Hama. He belonged to the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence. In 1243 he was sent as an envoy to Baghdad by Hama's Ayyubid ruler al-Muzaffar Mahmud. In 1244, he departed for Baghdad again to inform the Abbasid court of al-Muzaffar's death that year, but became ill with dysentery in Maarrat al-Nu'man and died after arriving back to Hama on 18 November.