{{Short description|Muslim notary and diarist}} '''Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad''' (1430–1509), called '''Ibn Ṭawq''', was a Muslim notary and diarist from Damascus.
==Life== Ibn Ṭawq was born in 1430{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=1}} into a peasant family from the village of Jayrūd outside Damascus. He also held land in the predominantly Christian village of Maʿlūlā.{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=19}} In Damascus, he lived near the {{ill|Qaṣab Mosque|ar|جامع السادات}} in the quarter of Sūq Ṣārūjā just north of the Bāb al-Salāma gate to Old Damascus. His mother's family was from Damascus.{{sfn|Wollina|2012}} In 1498, he moved to Maʿlūlā, where he stayed for at least a year and a half whie his wife remained in Damascus.{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=20}}
Ibn Ṭawq belonged to the middle class, owned an orchard and several female slaves.{{sfn|Wollina|2012}}{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|pp=33–35}} He was a court clerk (''kātib'') and notary (''shāhid'').{{sfn|Wollina|2012}}{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=20}} He adhered to the Shāfiʿī school of law, but did not hesitate to seek justice from a Ḥanbalī judge.{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=19}} He was just prominent enough to make it into the biographical dictionary of Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī, who describes him as a ''shaykh'', ''imām'' (prayer leader), ''ʿālim'' (scholar) and ''muḥaddith'' (traditionist).{{sfn|Wollina|2012}}
Ibn Ṭawq was married twice. With his first wife, he had a son and two daughters. His second wife, who belonged to a prominent family, had a daughter from a previous marriage. At one point he divorced and remarried her on account of an oath he took. They had five daughters who died in childhood and one son.{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|pp=29–32}}
Ibn Ṭawq died in 1509.{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=1}}
==Diary== Ibn Ṭawq is known almost entirely for and through his Arabic diary, which he entitled ''Taʿlīq'' ("summary report").{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=1}} The surviving portion of the diary covers the period from late 1480 to late 1501 with almost daily reports. Ibn Ṭawq also treated the diary as a sort of personal archive. According to Boaz Shoshan, there is "no comparable source for the pre-Ottoman era in terms of the density" of information than the ''Taʿlīq''.{{sfn|Shoshan|2020|p=1}} It is the only surviving diary from the Mamlūk Sultanate.{{sfn|Wollina|2012}}
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==Bibliography== {{refbegin}} *{{cite journal |first=Li |last=Guo |year=2008 |title=Review of ''Al-Taʿlīq'', vols. 2–3, ed. Ǧaʿfar al-Muḥāǧir |journal=Mamlūk Studies Review |volume=12 |pages=210–218 |url=https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1139/files/MSR_XII-1_2008-BookReviews-pp193-229.pdf}} *{{cite book |editor=Ǧaʿfar al-Muḥāǧir |publisher=Presses de l'Ifpo |year=2000–2007 |title=Al-Taʿlīq: Yawmīyāt Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad |author=Ibn Ṭawq}} 4 vols. *{{cite book |first=Boaz |last=Shoshan |title=Damascus Life, 1480–1500: A Report of a Local Notary |publisher=Brill |year=2020}} *{{cite journal |first=Torsten |last=Wollina |title=A View from Within: Ibn Ṭawq's Personal Topography of 15th century Damascus |journal=Bulletin d'études orientales |volume=61 |year=2012 |pages=271–295 |url=https://journals.openedition.org/beo/955}} {{refend}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Tawq}} Category:1430 births Category:1509 deaths Category:Writers from Damascus Category:15th-century diarists Category:15th-century historians of the medieval Islamic world