Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (or al-Maḳḳarī) (أحمد المقري التلمساني), (1577-1632)[1] was an Algerian scholar, biographer and historian who is best known for his Nafh at-Tib [ar],S a compendium of the history of Al-Andalus which provided a basis for the scholarly research on the subject until the twentieth century.
A native of Tlemcen and from a prominent intellectual family originally from the village of Maqqara, near M'sila in Algeria.
[1] After his early education in Tlemcen, al-Maqqari travelled to Fes in Morocco and then to Marrakesh, following the court of Ahmad al-Mansur.
[1] In 1617, he left for the East, possibly following a quarrel with the local ruler, and took up residence in Cairo, where he composed his best known work, Nafḥ al-ṭīb.
In 1628, he was again in Damascus, where he continued his lectures on Muhammad al-Bukhari's collection of Ḥadīth ('Traditions'), and spoke much of the glories of Muslim Iberia, and received the impulse to write his work on this subject later.