Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān, better known as Abū al-Fidāʾ, was a Mamluk era Syrian geographer, historian, Ayyubid prince and local governor of Hama. The crater Abulfeda on the Moon, is named after him.He is Kurdish origin.
Life
Abu'l-Fida was born in Damascus, where his father Malik ul-Afdal, brother of Emir Al-Mansur Muhammad II of Hama, had fled from the Mongols. Abu'l-Fida was thus a grandson of Al-Muzaffar Mahmud, who was himself the grandson of Al-Muzaffar Umar, a nephew of Saladin and grandson of Ayyub. In his boyhood he devoted himself to the study of the Qur'an and the sciences, but from his twelfth year onward, he was almost constantly engaged in military expeditions, chiefly against the crusaders. In 1285 he was present at the assault of a stronghold of the Knights of St. John, and took part in the sieges of Tripoli, Acre and Qal'at ar-Rum. In 1298 he entered the service of the MamlukSultanMalik al-Nasir and after twelve years was invested by him with the governorship of Hama. In 1312 he became prince with the title Malik us-Salhn, and in 1320 received the hereditary rank of sultan with the title Malik ul-Mu'ayyad. For more than twenty years all together he reigned in tranquillity and splendour, devoting himself to the duties of government and to the composition of the works to which he is chiefly indebted for his fame. He was a munificent patron of men of letters, who came in large numbers to his court. He died in 1331.
Works
Geography
Taqwim al-Buldan is, like much of the history, founded on the works of his predecessors, including the works of Ptolemy and Muhammad al-Idrisi. A long introduction on various geographical matters is followed by twenty-eight sections dealing in tabular form with the chief towns of the world. After each name are given the longitude, latitude, climate, spelling, and then observations generally taken from earlier authors. Parts of the work were published and translated as early as 1650 in Europe. In his works Abu'l-Fida correctly mentions the latitude and longitude of the city ofQuanzhou in China. The book also contains the first known explanation of the circumnavigator's paradox. Abu'l-Fida wrote that a person who completed a westward circumnavigation of the world would count one fewer day than a stationary observer, since he was traveling in the same direction as the apparent motion of the sun in the sky. A person traveling eastward would count one more day than a stationary observer. This phenomenon was confirmed two centuries later, when the Magellan–Elcano expedition completed the first circumnavigation. After sailing westward around the world from Spain, the expedition called at Cape Verde for supplies on Wednesday, 9 July 1522. However, the locals told them that it was actually Thursday, 10 July 1522.
