Yaqut al-Hamawi

Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (b. 1179 – d. August 20, 1229, Aleppo), Arab writer and geographer. He was Greek by origin from Asia Minor.

He is the author of many works, of which the great geographical dictionary – Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān (Alphabetical Dictionary of Countries) is particularly noteworthy. It contains interesting information about the South Caucasus and, in particular, Georgia. The description of Tbilisi is especially important: “Taflis or Tiflis... It is the capital of Georgia... It is a city beyond which Islam no longer spreads; a river, called the Kura, flows through it and joins the sea. There are millstones. It is surrounded by a great wall. There are extremely hot baths there, which do not require heating or pumping water... This is a hot spring that rises from the ground... These baths, as many residents of Tbilisi have told me, are for Muslims and others do not go there...”

The dictionary contains many references to Georgia. Abkhaz, Ulta (Oltisi), Uniki (a place in Bassiani where the Georgians defeated Rukn al-Din), Bassini (Bassiani), Tiflis (Tbilisi), Jurzan (Kartli), Khunani, Dmanisi, Jurji (Georgian) and others are named and explained.

 

Literary works: Jacut’s geographisches Wörterbuch aus der Handschriften zu Berlin, St. Petersburg und Paris, hrsg. von F. Wüstenfeld, Bd. 1–6, Lpz., 1866–73.

Publications: იაკუთის ცნობები საქართველოსა და კავკასიის შესახებ, ე. სიხარულიძის გამოც., ნაკვ. 1, თბ., 1964.

 

G. Japaridze