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Year 1187 (MCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
A trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weights and further distances than that of a traditional catapult.
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The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of that name.
Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, also known simply as Tarik in English, was a Berber commander who served the Umayyad Caliphate and initiated the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711–718 AD. He led an army and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from the North African coast, consolidating his troops at what is today known as the Rock of Gibraltar. The name "Gibraltar" is the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq, meaning "mountain of Ṭāriq", which is named after him.
Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ash-Shaybānī, better known as ʿAlī ʿIzz ad-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr al-Jazarī was a renowned Hadith expert, historian, and biographer who wrote in Arabic and was from the Ibn Athir family. At the age of twenty-one he settled with his father in Mosul to continue his studies, where he devoted himself to the study of history and Islamic tradition.
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Arab archery is the traditional style of archery practiced by the Arab peoples of the West Asia and North Africa from ancient to modern times.
Abū IsḥāqIbrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Mudabbir commonly simply known as Ibrahim ibn al-Mudabbir, was a senior courtier and fiscal administrator for the Abbasid Caliphate.
Hu dun pao (虎蹲砲) is the name of two different missile weapons in Chinese history. In the Song dynasty (960–1279), it was a trebuchet and its name is translated into English as Crouching Tiger Trebuchet; in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the name was given to a type of bombard and it is known in English as Crouching Tiger Cannon.
Ibn Farḥūn al-Mālikī—full name; Ibrāhīm b. ‘Alī b. M. Ibn Farḥūn, Burhān al-Dīn al-Ya’marī al-Andalusī al-Mālikī was an Arab Mālikī faqīh (jurist) of Medina. born into a prominent Arab family that traced its descent to Quraysh. He traveled to Egypt, Levant (Syria) and Jerusalem. In 1390 he returned to Medina, where he professed adherence to Maliki Islam and became qāḍa (judge). His principal biographer, Aḥmad Bābā attributes eight books to him. Only two MSS have been published, while three are lost.
Ibn Mu‘ṭī al-Zawāwī —Abū 'l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā ibn ‘Abd al-Nur Zayn al-Dīn al-Zawāwī, or Abū Zakarīyā’ Yaḥyā ibn ‘Abd al-Mu’ṭī ibn ‘Abdannūr az-Zawāwī ; was a Ḥanafī faqīh (jurist), grammarian, poet and philologian of the Maghreb and the author of first versified grammatical work, the Alfiyya, commentaries on grammatical treatises and versified lexicographic works. He also wrote numerous works on various scholarly categories. He was one of the foremost medieval Arabic grammarians.
Abū al-Khayr al-Ḥasan ibn Suwār ibn Bābā ibn Bahnām, called Ibn al-Khammār, was an East Syriac Christian philosopher and physician who taught and worked in Baghdad. He was a prolific translator from Syriac into Arabic and also wrote original works of philosophy, ethics, theology, medicine and meteorology.
The torsion mangonel myth, or simply the myth of the mangonel, is the belief that mangonels were torsion siege engines such as the ballista or onager which used the tension effect of twisted cords to shoot projectiles. Despite a significant body of research dating as far back as the 19th century pointing to the contrary, "it has not stopped the transmission of the myth to the present day." Evidence for the usage of torsion siege weapons, with the exception of the springald, exist only up until the 6th century, when they were superseded by the traction trebuchet, more commonly known as the mangonel.
Baha al-Din Qaraqush al-Asadi al-Rumi al-Maliki al-Nasiri was a eunuch military commander in the service of Saladin. He served as palace chamberlain and gaoler of the deposed Fatimid dynasty, and undertook for his master the construction of the Citadel of Cairo and the fortification of Acre. After Saladin's death, he served as regent of Egypt for the Ayyubid sultans al-Aziz Uthman and al-Mansur, until he was forced to retire. He died in 1201. Although highly esteemed by contemporaries and historians, his posthumous reputation derives chiefly from a satirical pamphlet by a political opponent that lampoons him as a stupid and tyrannical monarch.
References
- Claude Cahen, Un traité d'armurerie composé pour Saladin, Bulletin d'études orientales, vol 12, 1947-1948, pp. 103-163 (edition and partial translation, on line).
- A. Boudot-Lamotte and F. Viré, Contribution à l'étude de l'archerie musulmane, Institut français de Damas: Damascus, 1968, OCLC 2000537 (edition and translation of archery chapters from Murdî Ibn ˀAlî Murdî al-Tarsusî).
- Needham, Joseph, Science and civilisation in China, 1986, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3 excerpts inline
- Nicolle, David; McBride, Angus; Saladin and the Saracens, 1986, Osprey Publishing ISBN 0-85045-682-7