Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr, commonly known by the nisba al-Maqdisi or al-Muqaddasī, meaning Jerusalemite, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions and Description of Syria.
His work has been praised for its vivid descriptions, especially of his native region of Palestine, a toponymic identity with which he proudly identified.
Biography
Sources
Outside of his own work, there is little biographical information available about al-Maqdisi. He is neither found in the voluminous biographies of Ibn Khallikan (d. 1282) nor were the aspects of his life mentioned in the works of his contemporaries.
Early life and education
thumb|right|300px|Al-Maqdisi was from [[Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis in Arabic), from which he received his name. He was particularly fond of the city and described it at length in his geographic work.]]
He was born in Jerusalem in and belonged to a middle-class family whose roots in the city's environs dated from the period approximate to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. Al-Maqdisī or alternatively al-Muqaddasī was a nisba indicating that he was from "Bayt al-Maqdis" or "Bayt al-Muqaddas", the Muslim names for Jerusalem. ultimately visiting all of its lands with the exception of al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula), Sindh and Sistan. Moreover, Miquel surmises that al-Maqdisi "was probably the first to have desired and conceived" true geography as an "original science", an assertion that al-Maqdisi himself makes in the preface of Aḥsan al-taqāsīm.
Aḥsan al-taqāsīm gives a systematic account of all the places and regions al-Maqdisi had visited. In contrast to travelers to Palestine, such as Arculf (), Nasir Khusraw () and others, who were pilgrims, al-Maqdisi gave detailed insights into the region's population, way of life, economy and climate. He also recounts being given 36 different names by those he encountered during his travels, the first two being Muqadassi ("Jerusalemite") and Filastini ("Palestinian").