Imad El-Din El-Katib El-Isfahani – Excerpts from al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi

Bibliographic Information

Medieval Title:

al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi

Author:

Imad El-Din El-Katib El-Isfahani

A short biography translated from the introduction to: Al-Katib El-Isfahani, Imad al-Din. The Wars of Salah al-Din and the Conquest of Jerusalem, Known by Al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi, Written by the Eloquent Minister Abi Abdullah Mohammad Bin Mohammad Bin Hamid, Known for Imad al-Din Al-Katib Al-Isfahani who Died in 597 AH. Dar Al-Manar, 2004 (pages 5-8): 

Abu Abdullah Mohammad Bin Safi al-Din, known as Imad al-Din al-Asfahani, was born in Isfahan in 519 AH (1125 A.D.), and was a member of the Students Regular School in Baghdad. He was given the position of a General of Basra and then Waset by the Minister Aoun al-Din Yehya Bin Hubeira. When the Minister Bin Hubeira died in 561 AH (1161 A.D.), the general lost his position and was imprisoned. Although he was released after a short period of time, he was not able to regain his position in Iraq, so he moved to Damascus where Kamal a-Din Bin al-Shahzuri, the chief of judges of Damascus, presented him to Nur ad-Din Mahmoud Ibn Zanki, who appointed him a member in the Bureau of Construction in 563 AH. Imad El-Din stayed there until 567 AH, when he was transferred to another job related to his scientific activity before he arrived to Levant. His new position was a professional teaching one at the Nouriya Shafi’i School, inside Bab Al-Faraj, which was attributed to him for residing in it. It was called: Al-Amadiya. In the following year, he was involved in supervising the Construction Office.

Imad El-Din’s position deteriorated after the death of Nur al-Din because Nur al-Din’s son and successor, King Ismail (who had reigned in 569 AH (1173 A.D.) at the age of eleven,) removed Imad El-Din from his all his positions and expelled him from the court, so Imad El-Din departed from Damascus to Baghdad. He arrived to Al-Mousel and fell ill. There, he was informed that Salah al-Din had seized Egypt, and that he had gone out of it to go to Damascus to seize it, so Imad El-Din met him in Homs, and he contacted the virtuous judge who mediated his matter with Salah al-Din, and therefore, the sultan appointed him to represent the virtuous judge in the Court of Construction and to help him with the burdens of his job, and soon he gained the Sultan’s appreciation, and from that day, he became so close to Salah Al-Din and accompanied him in all his journeys, and he performed for him similar tasks to what the virtuous judge was doing of work. Even if he did not reach the same lofty status of the virtuous judge, he became Salah Al-Din’s partner and his right hand in all his actions, administrative decisions, politics and war, but especially in family affairs of the Ayubi dynasty. When Salah a-Din died in 589 AH (1193 A.D.), Imad was forced to stay in his house and accept the classification until he died on the thirteenth of Ramadan in the year 597 AH (20/6/1201 A.D.).

Imad El-Din’s Works:

The book Al-Fath Al-Qussi Fil-Fath Al-Qudsi is the history of only seven years of the life of Salah al-Din (583-589 AH), and this is the period in which Salah al-Din opened Jerusalem. The Virtuous Judge is the one who called Imad El-Din’s book this name, so he called it “Al-Fateh Al-Qudsi [the conquest of the holy house],” in relation to Jerusalem, and he named it “Al-Fateh Al-Qussi [the conquest of narration],” according to Quss Bin Sa’da Al-Ayadi, the preacher of the Arabs in Jahiliya. Also, the book Al-Fath Al-Qussi is an organized historical record of the wars that Salah Al-Din carried out between the years 583-589 AH; it is the period of the greatest Jihad he performed to cleanse Palestine, in particular and the Levant in general, from the Crusaders’ occupation.

Supporting Fitrah and Asrah al-Fitrah is a history of the Selajeka and their ministers, and a brief translation in a constructive manner, for the detailed Persian book, which was classified by Sharaf al-Din Anwar Sharwan, who died in 532 AH (1137 A.D.).

There is also another book by Imad El-Din that is purely literary, and it is the book Khurdat Al-Qasr wa Jaridat Ahl El-Aser, which is a translation of the writers of Egypt, the Levant, Morocco, Iraq and Al-Jazeera, who lived in Imad El-Din’s age.

Imad El-Din had also a poetry book, which had been lost, but Abu Shama recorded, in the two recitals, all the poems of Imad El-Din’s systems of praising Nur al-Din and Salah al-Din, congratulating them on their victory over the Crusaders, and in the lamentations of each upon his death. Also, his letters were lost, and only few of them survived.

He also wrote Resalat al-Atabi wa al-Uqbi on the events that followed the death of Salah al-Din until the year 592 AH (1196 A.D.); Abu Shama mentioned it, as he mentioned another book for him as well: Khatfat al-Barek wa ‘Atfat al-Sharek on the events from the year 593 AH until his death.

Haji Khalifa mentioned in his book Kashef Al Zunun 6/105 that Imad’s works included:

1- Al-Barq al-Shami (in history)

2- Al-Qasr and Al-Asr wa Jaridat Ahel el ‘Aser

3- Khatfat al-Barek wa ‘Atfat al-Sharek (in history)

4- Diwan Dubet

5- Diwan al-Rasa’el

6- Diwan She’r

7- Zubdat al Nasra wa Nekhbat and Asra (in history)

8- Alsayl Ala al-Zayl litareekh Baghdad

9 – Ataba wa al-Uqbi, (a message in history)

10- al-Qadeh al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi (which is in our hands under the name al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi).

11- Nahlat al-Rehla (in History)

12- Nasrat al-Fatra wa ‘Asrat al-Fatra

Imad El-Din El-Katib El-Isfahani Biography – Translated by Hisham Al Khatib (click here for PDF)

Composition:

Late twelfth century

Textual Information

Brief Summary: 

The narrative in the below passage includes an elaborate portrait of the True Cross and Christian (The Franks) devotion to it.

Relics Appearing in Text: 

True Cross

Manuscripts, Editions, and Translations

Manuscripts: 

List of Editions of the Medieval Text: 

El-Katib El-Isfahani, Imad El-Din, and Carlo Landberg. Conquête de la Syrie et de la Palestine Par Salah Ed-Din. Vol. 1, Brill, 1888.

Al-Katib El-Isfahani, Imad al-Din. The Wars of Salah al-Din and the Conquest of Jerusalem, Known by Al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi, Written by the Eloquent Minister Abi Abdullah Mohammad Bin Mohammad Bin Hamid, Known for Imad al-Din Al-Katib Al-Isfahani who Died in 597 AH. Edited by Ibrahim Shams Al-Din. Beirut: The House of Scientific Books, 2003.

Al-Katib El-Isfahani, Imad al-Din. The Wars of Salah al-Din and the Conquest of Jerusalem, Known by Al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-Fath al-Qudsi, Written by the Eloquent Minister Abi Abdullah Mohammad Bin Mohammad Bin Hamid, Known for Imad al-Din Al-Katib Al-Isfahani who Died in 597 AH. Dar Al-Manar, 2004.

List of Translations of the Medieval Text: 

Al-Isfahani, Imad ad-Din. Arab Historians of the Crusades: Selected and Translated from the Arabic Sources by Francesco Gabrieli. Translated by E. J. Costello. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1969. (pp. 136-7)

Original Editions/Translations We Have Produced: 

Excerpts from al-Fath al-Qussi Fil-fath al-Audsi – Translated by Hisham Al Khatib (click here)