An eyewitness description of Egypt by a Baghdadi physician living in Cairo through the Nile failure of 1200: the height of the river year by year, the famine of 1200 to 1201 with its cannibalism and the flight of the poor, the plague of 1201 to 1202, prices, the state of the countryside, and the monuments, plants, animals and customs of Egypt. It is the most vivid single source for the catastrophe that shaped Ayyubid Egypt in the years after 1200. He names no politics and few people; the value is in the physical and social detail.
About this source
- Title
- Kitab al-Ifada wa'l-i'tibar fi'l-umur al-mushahada wa'l-hawadith al-mu'ayana bi-ard Misr
- Author
- Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi
- Author's dates
- 1162 to 1231
- Written
- 1204, from notes made 1197 to 1204
- Language
- Arabic
- Covers
- 1197 to 1204
- Kind
- Geography
De Sacy's 1810 French is public domain; the Internet Archive copy comes from the Wellcome Library. White's 1800 Arabic-Latin edition exists on Google Books but was not verified here. Zand and Videan's English is in copyright.
Where to read it
Editions
- J. White (ed.), Abdollatiphi historiae Aegypti compendium (Oxford, 1800), Arabic with Latin (not freely online)
Translations
- A. I. Silvestre de Sacy, Relation de l'Egypte par Abd-Allatif, medecin arabe de Bagdad (Paris, 1810), French with long notes
- K. H. Zand, J. A. and I. E. Videan, The Eastern Key (London, 1965), English with Arabic (not freely online)