Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān[a][3] (Arabic: أحمد بن محمد بن إبراهيم بن أبي بكر ابن خلكان; 22 September 1211 – 30 October 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a renowned Islamic historian who compiled the celebrated biographical encyclopedia of Muslim scholars and important men in Muslim history, Deaths of Eminent Men and the Sons of the Epoch (Arabic: وفيات الأعيان وأنباء أبناء الزمان, romanized: wafayāt al-ʾaʿyān wa-ʾanbāʾ ʾabnāʾ al-zamān).
[4] Due to this achievement, he is regarded as the most eminent writer of biographies in Islamic history.
[5] Ibn Khallikān was born in Erbil on 22 September 1211 (11 Rabī’ al-Thānī, 608), into a family that claimed descent from Barmakids,[3] an Iranian dynasty from Balkh.
[6] His primary studies took him from Erbil, to Aleppo and to Damascus,[7] before he took up jurisprudence in Mosul and then in Cairo, where he settled.
[8] An early biographer described him as "a pious man, virtuous, and learned; amiable in temper, in conversation serious and instructive.