Zakariya al-Qazwini

ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt, 16th-century manuscript

Zakariyya' al-Qazwini (full name: Abū Yaḥyā Zakariyyāʾ ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Qazwīnī, Arabic: أبو يحيى زكرياء بن محمد بن محمود القزويني), also known as Qazvini (Persian: قزوینی), (born c. 1203 in Qazvin, Iran, and died 1283), was a cosmographer and geographer.

He belonged to a family of jurists originally descended from Anas bin Malik (a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) which had been well established in Qazvin long before al-Qazwini was born.[1]

His most famous work is the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt (lit. 'Wonders of the Creation and Unique [phenomena] of the Existence'), a seminal work in cosmography.[2] He is also the author of the geographical dictionary Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād (lit. 'Monuments of the Lands and Historical Traditions about Their Peoples').[3]

  1. ^ Lewicki 1960–2007; Maqbul Ahmad 1981, p. 230.
  2. ^ Maqbul Ahmad 1981, p. 230; Bosworth & Afshar 1984–2011.
  3. ^ Bosworth 1987–2011.