Overview

One of the first and most important travel accounts written about Egypt and Cairo is Ibn al-Nasih's Misbah al-Dayagi, which ranks only second after Ibn 'Utman's al-Durr al-munazzam fi ziyarat gabal al-Muqattamhistorically. In it, Ibn al-Nasih claims that he corrected many of the errors found in Ibn 'Utman's book and that he greatly increased the number of people he mentioned, in comparison with the only two hundred names found in al-Durr al-munazzam. The book of Ibn al-Nasih was also an important source for later authors who wrote on the topography of the cemeteries in particular, and on the description of Cairo and Egypt in general, such as Ibn al-Zayyat's al-Kawakib al-sayyara fi tartib al-ziyara, al-Sahawi's Tuhfat al-ahbab wa-bugyat al-tullab fi al-hitat wa-l-ziyarat wa-l-taragim wa-l-biqa' al-mubarakat, and al-Su'aybi's Man dufina bi-Misr al-Qahira min al-muhadditin wa-l-'ulama' wa-l-awliya' min al-rigal wa-l-nisa'. The vizir Tag al-Din Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad b. Muhammad, also known as Ibn Hanna, had the reputation of being a sponsor of the poor and the scholars, as a tribute to his grandfather, the vizir Baha' al-Din 'Ali (d. 677/1278), who built the Baha'iyya grave during his life in order to attract there the poor and the scholars so that they could be close to him in the afterlife. Ibn Hanna, just like his grandfather, was fond of visiting the tombs of those buried in such holy places as the two cemeteries (al-Qarafatayn) and Gabal al-Muqattam. When Ibn al-Nasih heard about this interest of the vizir, he decided to write his Misbah al-Dayagi, hoping that it would help him draw closer to him. If some of the sources that he used were already known to us and are available today, others are still completely unknown, or did not reach us. This makes the Misbah al-Dayagian invaluable source for the study of topography in general, and of the cemeteries of Egypt and Cairo in particular.

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