Zakariya al-Qazwini

Zakariyya' al-Qazwini (full name: Abū Yaḥyā Zakariyyāʾ ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Qazwīnī, Arabic: أبو يحيى زكرياء بن محمد بن محمود القزويني), also known as Qazvini (Persian: قزوینی), (born c. 1203 in Qazvin, Iran, and died 1283), was a cosmographer and geographer.

He belonged to a family of jurists originally descended from Anas bin Malik (a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) which had been well established in Qazvin long before al-Qazwini was born.

[3] Born in Qazvin, of either Persian or Arab ancestry,[4] al-Qazwini served as a legal expert and judge in several localities in Iran.

He traveled around in Mesopotamia and the Levant, and finally entered the circle patronized by the Ilkhanid governor of Baghdad, Ata-Malik Juvayni (d. 1283 CE).

[5] It was to the latter that al-Qazwini dedicated his famous cosmography titled ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt (lit.