Ibn al-Athir

Ibn al-Athir belonged to the Shayban lineage^[6] of the large and influential Arab tribe Banu Bakr,^[7][8] who lived across upper Mesopotamia, and gave their name to the city of Diyar Bakr.^[9][10][11] He is also described to have been of Kurdish origin.^[12]

He was the brother of Majd ad-Dīn and Diyā' ad-Dīn Ibn Athir. Al-Athir lived a scholarly life in Mosul, often visited Baghdad and for a time traveled with Saladin's army in Syria. He later lived in Aleppo and Damascus. His chief work was a history of the world, al-Kamil fi at-Tarikh (The Complete History).

Ibn al-Athir died in 1232/1233, and was buried in a cemetery in Mosul, at the district of Bab Sinjar.^[13] His tomb was built in the 20th century and was located in the middle of a road, after the cemetery was cleared for modernization.^[14] It became a site of an erroneous legend, which identified it as a tomb of a female mystic.^[15] However, the government later installed a marble stele to indicate that it was Ibn al-Athir's tomb.^[16][17] His tomb was also regarded in local Yazidi folklore as being the grave of a girl who married the Emir of Mosul but died of poisoning.^[18]

The tomb of Ibn al-Athir was bulldozed by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in June 2014.^[19]

• Al-Kāmil fī al-tārīkh (الكامل في التاريخ): "The Complete History"; 11 volumes^[20]
• al-Usd al-ghābah fi ma‘rifat al-ṣaḥābah: "The Lions of the Forest and the knowledge about the Companions"
• Jami' al-Usul fi Ahadeth ar-Rasul, a massive collection of Hadith (14 large volumes).^[21]
• n-Nihayatu fi Gharib al-Hadith wa al-Athar, a classical work on Gharib branch of Hadith terminology where Al-Suyuti said: "This is the best books of rare terms (ghareeb), the most complete, best known and most widely used."^[22]
• Al-Qawl al-Jamil fi 'Ilm al-Jarh wa at-Ta'dil
• Al-Tārīkh al-bāhir fī al-Dawlah al-Atābakīyah bi-al-Mawṣil
• Al-Lubāb fī tahdhīb al-ansāb

• List of Muslim historians
• List of Islamic scholars
• List of Ash'aris and Maturidis
• Varangian