Names Found in An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh, as translated by Philip K. Hitti
collected and arranged by Basil Dragonstrike


Around 1183 Usāmah ibn Murshid ibn ‘Ali ibn Muqallad ibn Naṣr ibn Munqidh, generally known as ibn Munqidh, wrote, or dictated, his memoirs of a long and full life, being around 88 years old at the time. In 1929 Phillip K. Hitti translated ibn Munqidh's memoirs under the rather ponderous title An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh (published by Princeton University Press).

In this article I have collected and arranged all the personal names from ibn Munqidh's work. To the best I am able, I have not included any non-personal names, nor (save for the list of titular names) any "titles" or "terms of honor/respect".

It is important to keep in mind that in ibn Munqidh's time and place (12th century northern Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt) that there were quite a few powerful and influential Turkic individuals, as well as less important Turkic warriors, servants, etc. Thus, a significant percentage of the people named by ibn Munqidh had names that were in whole or in part Turkic or Arabized Turkic (or even Turkicized Arabic). Note as well, that there was a noticeable Persian influence, and Persian, Arabicized Persian (even Persianized Arabic) names may be present.

Though most of the people named were sultans, wazirs, battle leaders, warriors, etc., there is a goodly percentage of servants and ordinary fighters. However, there are few names from outside the political/military sphere.

A note on transliteration: Hitti has mostly followed the LOC/ALA romanization scheme. But, there are a few things to note; He always puts a hyphen after "ibn" and "abu"; He never capitalizes "abu" nor marks the "u" as long. I have used Abū throughout, as well as Abī, and removed the hyphen from those and from "ibn".

Most important: there is not a single name element ending in a long vowel (that is, one marked with a macron). Given that nearly every name element from other sources I've seen that ends in a vowel, has that vowel marked with a macron, I conclude that Hitti, for whatever reason, "shortened" all final vowels. Since using such spellings alongside spellings (from other sources) that do end in long vowels would lead to peculiar names (and violate SCA strictures), I have used other sources to determine if the final vowels should be long.

Specifically: I accepted ʻAlī, Mūsā, and ʻĪsā throughout. Where I found evidence of a name being a locative or a tribal byname, I have used the spelling with a final long vowel (or short, if my other sources show it as short). Where I could document the particular individual, I have used the "proper" spelling. Where I could do none of the above, I have removed that person from these lists.

A note on the form of this article: I have arranged the names I found into a number of different lists, and put each list on its own page. There is one page for isms (essentially given names), one for laqabs/nisbas (bynames), and one for titular names (that is, ones of the form ______ al-Dīn, ______ al-Dawla, etc.). Some of these pages have more than one list, and further information is provided on each page.

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