Al-Hamdani

Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Ahmad ibn Ya'qub al-Hamdani (c. 893-945 CE / c. 280-334 AH) was a polymath of tenth-century Yemen, best remembered as a geographer, historian and antiquarian of South Arabia. He took his name from the great Hamdan tribal confederation, and much of his life's work was devoted to recovering the pre-Islamic past of Yemen and its Himyarite (ancient South-Arabian) kings. Reliable reference works describe him as a grammarian, poet, astronomer and student of the natural world as well, earning the later honorific "tongue of Yemen" (lisan al-Yaman) in tradition.

He is said to have been born in Sana'a, to have studied for a period in Mecca, and to have gathered material across Yemen, including at Sa'da. Tradition reports that his outspokenness in regional and tribal politics led to his imprisonment; his fellow tribesmen are said to have agitated for his release, after which he lived under their protection at Raydah, where he composed much of his work. The sources differ on his end: some report he died at Raydah, others that he died in prison at Sana'a. His best-known surviving books are Sifat Jazirat al-'Arab ("Description of the Arabian Peninsula"), a foundational geography of Arabia and Socotra, and Kitab al-Iklil ("The Crown"), a ten-volume compendium of Himyarite history and genealogy of which only parts survive. Nineteenth-century European scholars edited and published these works, securing his lasting reputation.