Ibn al-Wardi

He was the author of Kharīdat al-ʿAjā'ib wa farīdat al-gha'rāib (The Pearl of wonders and the Uniqueness of strange things), a geographical treatise with sections on natural history.

[2][3] The name Abū Ḥafs Zayn al-Dīn ʻUmar ibn al-Muẓaffar Ibn al-Wardī (ابن الوردي) may also refer to this man's grandfather (born in Maarat al-Numan, Syria, AH 691 (1291/1292) died AH 749 (1348/1349)), a historian and poet known for his writings about the plague in Syria before his death.

In his youth he filled the office of deputy to the hakim, or principal judge of the city of Aleppo; but he quitted the judicature to devote his time to the cultivation of science.

[3]Ibn al-Wardi (Sr.) was an eyewitness of the Black Death; he died in Aleppo of plague on 27 Dhū aI-Hijjah 749 (18 March 1349 BH).

Ibn Al-Wardi's (Sr.) risalah ("message"), translated by Dols as "An Essay on the Report of the Pestilence," includes his firsthand account of the plague in Syria:China was not preserved from it nor could the strongest fortress hinder it.

[4]The main English translation in use today, by Michael Dols, "is presented in simple prose without regard to the original's meter, rhyme, and elaborate literary conceits".

Although in the book al-Wardi credits al-Mas'udi, al-Tusi and several other sources, Mohamed Bencheneb claimed it is a plagiarism of a book by Egyptian writer Najm ad-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Ḥamdān ibn Shabib al-Ḥanbali, entitled Jāmi ʿal-Funūn wa-Salwat al-Maḥzūn.