The Most Famous
HISTORIANS from Iraq
This page contains a list of the greatest Iraqi Historians. The pantheon dataset contains 339 Historians, 5 of which were born in Iraq. This makes Iraq the birth place of the 16th most number of Historians behind Spain and Czechia.
Top 5
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Iraqi Historians of all time. This list of famous Iraqi Historians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Al-Baladhuri (806 - 892)
With an HPI of 62.43, Al-Baladhuri is the most famous Iraqi Historian. His biography has been translated into 33 different languages on wikipedia.
ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī (Arabic: أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and enjoyed great influence at the court of the caliph al-Mutawakkil. He travelled in Syria and Iraq, compiling information for his major works. His full name was Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Al-Baladhuri (Arabic: أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري), Balazry Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Abul Hasan or Abi al-Hassan Baladhuri.
2. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (1002 - 1071)
With an HPI of 56.87, Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi is the 2nd most famous Iraqi Historian. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.
Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Thābit ibn Aḥmad ibn Māhdī al-Shāfiʿī, commonly known as al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (Arabic: الخطيب البغدادي) or "the lecturer from Baghdad" (10 May 1002 – 5 September 1071; 392 AH-463 AH), was a Sunni Muslim scholar known for being one of the foremost leading hadith scholars and historians at his time. He is widely considered an important authority in hadith, fiqh and history.
3. Hisham ibn al-Kalbi (737 - 819)
With an HPI of 53.78, Hisham ibn al-Kalbi is the 3rd most famous Iraqi Historian. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.
Hishām ibn al-Kalbī (Arabic: هشام بن الكلبي), 737 AD – 819 AD/204 AH, also known as Ibn al-Kalbi (إبن الكلبي), was an Arab historian. His full name was Abu al-Mundhir Hisham ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib ibn Bishr al-Kalbi. Born in Kufa, he spent much of his life in Baghdad. Like his father, he collected information about the genealogies and history of the ancient Arabs. According to the Fihrist, he wrote 140 works. His account of the genealogies of the Arabs is continually quoted in the Kitab al-Aghani. Hisham established a genealogical link between Ishmael and the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and put forth the idea that all Arabs were descended from Ishmael. He relied heavily on the ancient oral traditions of the Arabs, but also quoted writers who had access to Biblical and Palmyran sources. In 1966, Werner Caskel compiled a two volume study of Ibn al-Kalbi's Jamharat al-Nasab ("The Abundance of Kinship") entitled Das genealogische Werk des Hisam Ibn Muhammad al Kalbi ("The Genealogical Works of Hisham ibn Muhammad al-Kalbi"). It contains a prosopographic register of every individual mentioned in the genealogy in addition to more than three hundred genealogical tables based on the contents of the text.
4. Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad (1145 - 1234)
With an HPI of 53.75, Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad is the 4th most famous Iraqi Historian. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf ibn Rāfiʿ ibn Tamīm (Arabic: بهاء الدين ابن شداد; the honorific title "Bahā' ad-Dīn" means "splendor of the faith"; sometimes known as Bohadin or Boha-Eddyn) (6 March 1145 – 8 November 1234) was a 12th-century Kurdish jurist, scholar and historian notable for writing a biography of Saladin whom he knew well.
5. Avi Shlaim (1945 - )
With an HPI of 41.34, Avi Shlaim is the 5th most famous Iraqi Historian. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Avi Shlaim (born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli and British historian of Iraqi Jewish descent. He is one of Israel's "New Historians", a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Israel.
Pantheon has 5 people classified as historians born between 737 and 1945. Of these 5, 1 (20.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living historians include Avi Shlaim. The most famous deceased historians include Al-Baladhuri, Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, and Hisham ibn al-Kalbi. As of April 2022, 1 new historians have been added to Pantheon including Avi Shlaim.
Living Historians
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Al-Baladhuri
806 - 892
HPI: 62.43
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi
1002 - 1071
HPI: 56.87
Hisham ibn al-Kalbi
737 - 819
HPI: 53.78
Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad
1145 - 1234
HPI: 53.75
