and a great many people transmitted from him.

He passed away in 622 AH (1), at roughly ninety years of age, for he would say, “I saw Shurayḥ ibn Muḥammad.”

188 – Yāqūt, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Rūmī, the freedman of ʿAskar al-Ḥamawī*

The unparalleled man of letters, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Rūmī, the freedman of ʿAskar al-Ḥamawī; a seasoned voyager, grammarian, collector of reports, and historian. His master emancipated him, after which he earned a living by copying manuscripts for hire. Exceptionally intelligent, he later travelled on a profit-sharing venture to Kish. Thanks to wide reading he had come to know many subjects, and he spoke critically of some of the Companions (2); consequently he was humiliated and fled to Aleppo, then to Irbil and Khurasan. He traded in Marw and Khwarazm, but when the Mongols erupted he escaped with his life. Destitute, he made his way back to Aleppo and endured severe hardship.

Among his works are Kitāb al-Udabāʾ (“The Men of Letters”) in four volumes; Kitāb al-Shuʿarāʾ al-Mutaʾakhkhirīn wa-l-Qudamāʾ (“The Poets, Late and Early”); Kitāb Muʿjam al-Buldān (“The Dictionary of Countries”); Kitāb al-Mushtarak Wadaʿan wa-l-Mukhtalif Ṣaqʿan, a large and useful book; Kitāb al-Mabdaʾ wa-l-Maʾāl fī al-Tārīkh (“The Origin and the End in History”); Kitāb al-Duwal (“The Dynasties”); and Kitāb al-Ansāb (“Genealogies”). He was a versatile poet and an accomplished stylist, and while in Khurasan he said (3):