Abu'l-Fida

Ismāʿīl bin ʿAlī bin Maḥmūd bin Muḥammad bin ʿUmar bin Shāhanshāh bin Ayyūb bin Shādī bin Marwān, better known as Abū al-Fidāʾ or Abulfeda, was a Mamluk-era Kurdish geographer, historian, Ayyubid prince and local governor of Hama. He was born in November 1273 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 an Ayyubid prince of Kurdish origin. 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 attack on 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 Mamluk sultan Malik 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. He died in 1331.