The Obituaries of Eminent Men pdf download

The Obituaries of Eminent Men  By Ibn Khallikan – Wafayat al-Ayan

وفيات الاغيان

The Obituaries of Eminent Men

Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary has always been considered as a work of the highest importance for the civil and literary history of the Moslim people. 

From its first appearance till the present day, its reputation has continued undiminished, and the judgment of the author s countrymen has 

been confirmed by the unanimous voice of Oriental scholars. 

If the later Arabic historians filled their pages with extracts drawn from it as from a 

pure and abundant source,— 

if rhetoricians, grammarians, and compilers of anecdotes have culled from it the choicest passages, —

 if learned men essayed to complete it by supplements, or to condense it by abridgments 

with the design of rendering its utility more general, — 

we find, nearer home, an equally valid testimony borne to its merit by the suffrages of the illustrious Pococke, Schultens, Reiske, and De Sacy. 

The variety of its subject might have alone sufficed to fix the attention of every person who took an interest in Moslim history and Arabic literature, but when that quality was combined with others which clearly indicated the 

intelligence, learning, and abilities of the author, the work had an undoubted right to general estimation. 

None felt this more deeply than Sir William 

Jones, and none expressed their opinion in stronger terms. 

When that accomplished scholar penned his Poeseos Asiaticce Comment arium, he traced 

these lines, in which, notwithstanding the heightened tone of his colouring, there is a degree of truth such as precludes me from adding any eulogy of my own: 44 Scrip toris politissimi Ebni Khallikan opus historicum non magis ” verborum elegantia et ubertate commendatur, quam illustriorum poetarum 

” versibus quibus conspergitur. Ac nescio an hie omnibus vitarum scripto-