Al-Qifti

'Alī ibn Yūsuf al-Qifṭī or Ali ibn Yusuf the Qifti (of Qift, his home city) (علي بن يوسف القفطي), he was Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan 'Alī ibn Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm ibn 'Abd al-Wahid al-Shaybānī (جمال الدين أبو الحسن علي بن يوسف بن ٳبراهي بن عبد الواحد الشيباني) (ca. 1172–1248); an Egyptian Arab historian, biographer-encyclopedist, patron, and administrator-scholar under the Ayyubid rulers of Aleppo. His biographical dictionary Kitāb Ikhbār al-'Ulamā' bi Akhbār al-Ḥukamā (إخبار العلماء بأخبار الحكماء), tr. 'History of Learned Men'; is an important source of Islamic biography. Much of his vast literary output is lost, including his histories of the Seljuks, Buyids and the Maghreb, and biographical dictionaries of philosophers and philologists.