Ibn al-Tiqtaqa

 ( 1262 Births ) 

Ṣafī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ṭabāṭabā (; 1262–1309), also known as Ibn al-Tiqtaqa, was a historian and naqib of Alids in Hillah.

He was a direct descendant of Ḥasan ibn Ali. According to E.G. Browne's English version of Mīrzā Muhammad b. ‛Abudi’l-Wahhāb-i—Qazwīni's edition of ‛Alā-ad-Dīn ‛Ata Malik-i-Juwaynī's Ta’rīhh-i-Jahān Gushā (London 1912, Luzac, p.ix), Ibn al-Tiqtaqā's name was Safiyu’d-Din Muhammad ibn ‛Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Tabātabā.

Around 1302 he wrote a popular compendium of Islamic history called al-Fakhri.Geert Jan van Gelder. The Classical Arabic Cannon of Polite (and Impolite) Literature. Cultural Repertoires: Structure, Function, and Dynamics. Peeters Publishing, 2003, pp. 45– 58. al-Ṭiqṭaqā, Al-Fakhrî, Histoire des dynasties Musulmanes depuis la mort de Mahomet jusqu’a la chute du khalifat 'Abâsîde de Bagdâdz (11-656 de l'hégire = 632-1258 de J.-C.) avec des prolégomènes sur les principes du gouvernement, traduit par Émile Amar, Paris, Leroux, 1910. En https://archive.org/details/alfakhrhistoir00muamuoft.

According to the political scientist Vasileios Syros, the philosophy of ibn al-Ṭabāṭabā can be compared to that of Niccolò Machiavelli.

• Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. ii, (Leiden 1927, Brill), pp. 423–4.
• Note by Professor H. A. R. Gibb, in Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of History