Baha ad-Din Shoieb

First volume of the Vita et res gestae Sultani, almalichi alnasiri, Saladini by "Bohadinus" (i.e. Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad). Parallel Arabic and Latin text printed in two columns. Edited and translated by Albert Schultens, published in Leiden by Samuel Luchtmans, dated 1732. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf ibn Rāfiʿ ibn Tamīm (; the honorific title "Bahā' ad-Dīn" means "splendor of the faith"; sometimes known as Bohadin or Boha-Eddyn ) (6 March 1145 – 8 November 1234) was a 12th-century Arabic jurist, scholar and historian notable for writing a biography of Saladin whom he knew well.

Life

Ibn Shaddad was born in Mosul on 10 Ramadan 539 AH (6 March 1145 CE), where he studied the Qur'an, hadith, and Muslim law before moving to the Nizamiyya of Baghdad where he rapidly became mu'id ("assistant professor"). About 1173, he returned to Mosul as mudarris ("professor"). and provided "a vivid chronicle of the Third Crusade".

Extracts of his accounts of the Crusaders' march from Acre to Arsuf and the subsequent battle (in which Ibn Shaddad was an actual participant) appear in the book "A Knight in battle", written and illustrated by R Ewart Oakeshott.

Saladin and ibn Shaddād soon became close friends and the sultan appointed him to several high administrative and judicial offices. Ibn Shaddād also wrote several works on the practical application of Islamic law, The Refuge of Judges from the Ambiguity of Judgements, The Proofs of Judgments and The Epitome as well as a monograph entitled The Virtues of the Jihad. Much of the information known about Ibn Shaddād derives from Ibn Khallikan's contemporary Biographical Dictionary (Wafāyāt al-a'yān, literally "Obituaries of Eminent Men").