Usama ibn Munqidh

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Usama ibn Munqidh bigraphy, stories - Poet

Usama ibn Munqidh : biography

July 4, 1095 – November 17, 1188

Majd ad-Dīn Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ʿAlī ibn Munqidh al-Kināni al-KalbiMajd ad-Din is an honorific title meaning "glory of the faith". His given name, Usama, means "lion". Murshid was his father, Ali his grandfather, and Munqidh his great-grandfather. The Munqidh family belonged to Kinanah from Kalb from the Qudhaa. Paul M. Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh: Warrior-Poet in the Age of Crusades (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), p. 4. (also Usamah, Ousama, etc.; ) (July 4, 1095 – November 17, 1188According to Ibn Khallikan he was born on 27 Jumada al-Thani, 488 AH and died 23 Ramadan 584 AH. Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, trans. William MacGuckin, Baron de Slane, vol. 1 (Paris: 1842), p. 179. The Gregorian calendar dates are from Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh, p. 4.) was a medieval Muslim poet, author, faris (professional warrior), and diplomat from the Banu Munqidh dynasty of Shaizar in northern Syria. His life coincided with the rise of several medieval Muslim dynasties, as well as the arrival of the First Crusade and the establishment of the crusader states.

He was the nephew of the emir of Shaizar and probably expected to rule Shaizar himself, but he was exiled in 1131 and spent the rest of his life serving other leaders. He was a courtier to the Burids, Zengids, and Ayyubids in Damascus, serving the famous Zengi, Nur ad-Din, and Saladin over a period of almost fifty years. He also served the Fatimid court in Cairo, as well as the Artuqids in Hisn Kayfa. He often meddled in the politics of the courts in which he served, and he was exiled from both Damascus and Cairo.

During and immediately after his life he was most famous as a poet and adib (a "man of letters"). He wrote many poetry anthologies, such as the Kitab al-‘Asa ("Book of the Staff"), Lubab al-Adab ("Kernels of Refinement"), and al-Manazil wa’l-Diyar ("Dwellings and Abodes"), and collections of his own original poetry. For modern readers, however, he is most well known for his Kitab al-I’tibar ("Book of Learning by Example" or "Book of Contemplation"), which contains lengthy descriptions of the crusaders, whom he interacted with on many occasions, and some of whom he considered friends, although he generally saw them as ignorant foreigners.

Most of his family was killed in an earthquake at Shaizar in 1157. He died in Damascus in 1188, at the age of 93, a remarkably advanced age for the time.

Reputation

Usama was known for meddling in the business of others, rather than commanding any power of his own. As the Encyclopaedia of Islam says, "his career was a troubled one, and for this his own actions were surely responsible in large part."R. S. Humphreys, Munḳid̲h̲, Banū, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd. ed., vol. VII (Leiden: Brill, 1960–2002), p. 579.

To contemporary and later medieval Muslims, however, he was best remembered for his poetry and his poetry anthologies.Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh, p. 116. Ibn Khallikan, author of a fourteenth-century biographical dictionary, calls him "one of the most powerful, learned, and intrepid members of the [Munqidh] family" and speaks at great length about his poetry.Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, trans. MacGuckin, p. 179.

He was also known for his military and hunting exploits. Ibn al-Athir described him as "the ultimate of bravery", regarding his presence at the Battle of Harim.The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, trans. D.S. Richards, p. 134.

For modern readers he is most famous for the Kitab al-I’tibar and his descriptions of life in Syria during the early crusades. The disjointed nature of the work has given him a reputation as a senile rambler, although it is actually written with an anthological structure, with humorous or moralistic tales that are not meant to proceed chronologically, as a true autobiography would.The Book of Contemplation, trans. Cobb, introduction, p. xxxi. Since this style of literature, adab in Arabic, does not necessarily have to be factual, historians are quick to point out that Usama’s historical material cannot always be trusted. Usama’s anecdotes about the crusades are sometimes obvious jokes, exaggerating their "otherness" to entertain his Muslim audience.Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh, p. 69. As Carole Hillenbrand wrote, it would be "dangerously misleading to take the evidence of his book at its face value."Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Routledge, 2000), p. 260.