Ibn al-Jawzi
Ibn al-Jawzi was a 20th generation descendant of caliph Abu Bakr, the father-in-law of the prophet Muhammad
(
de Somogyi, 1932:51). He was born in Baghdad around 1115 CE and
died there in 1200 CE (
de Somogyi, 1932:52). A true bibliophile, he is reported to have
spent most of a considerable inherited fortune in purchasing books (
de Somogyi, 1932:52).
He was a preacher and a prolific author whose output numbers at least in the hundreds of volumes and may have reached, as he claimed, a thousand
(
de Somogyi, 1932:54). His most famed and important work is
The Book on Rightly ordered Things and the Collection of Necessary Things dealing with the History of the Kings and the Nation
(Kitab al muntazam wa multaqat al-multazam fi akhbar wal-umam) which is usually referred to as Kitab al-muntazam. This text
is arranged in chronological order starting from "Creation" until
A.H. 574 (1178/1179 CE) and appears to have been completed shortly
before his death in 1200 CE (
de Somogyi, 1932:55).
de Somogyi (1932:55) states that
the work originally consisted of sixteen volumes, but the
copyists of later times divided it into parts
.