Hishām ibn al-Kalbī | |
|---|---|
 Arabic calligraphy of Hishām ibn al-Kalbī | |
| Personal | |
| Born | 737 CE |
| Died | 819 CE |
| Religion | Shi'ite |
| Main interest(s) | History |
| Notable idea(s) | |
| Notable work(s) | Jamharat al-Ansab, Kitab al-Asnam |
| Senior posting | |
Influenced | |
Hishām ibn al-Kalbī (Arabic: هشام بن الكلبي), 737 AD – 819 AD/204 AH, also known as Ibn al-Kalbi (إبن الكلبي), was an Arab historian.[1] His full name was Abu al-Mundhir Hisham ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib ibn Bishr al-Kalbi. Born in Kufa,[2] he spent much of his life in Baghdad. Like his father, he collected information about the genealogies and history of the ancient Arabs. According to the Fihrist, he wrote 140 works. His account of the genealogies of the Arabs is continually quoted in the Kitab al-Aghani.[3]
Hisham established a genealogical link between Ishmael and the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and put forth the idea that all Arabs were descended from Ishmael.[1] He relied heavily on the ancient oral traditions of the Arabs, but also quoted writers who had access to Biblical and Palmyran sources.[1]
In 1966, Werner Caskel compiled a two volume study of Ibn al-Kalbi's Jamharat al-Nasab ("The Abundance of Kinship") entitled Das genealogische Werk des Hisam Ibn Muhammad al Kalbi ("The Genealogical Works of Hisham ibn Muhammad al-Kalbi").[4] It contains a prosopographic register of every individual mentioned in the genealogy in addition to more than three hundred genealogical tables based on the contents of the text.
