The Purposes of the Journey According to Kamal al-Din Omar Ibn al-Adim (588-660 AH 1192-1261 / AD) A Reading of Political, Social, and Religious Texts

This research aims to introduce the personality of one of the most important historians of the seventh century AH/thirteenth century AD, Kamal al-Din Ibn al-Adim, the famous historian from Aleppo, who was born in the city of Aleppo in Bilad al-Sham. It also aims to outline the purposes and objectives of his travels and journeys to various cities.The importance of this research is highlighted in clarifying the purposes and types of travels of Ibn al-Adim and their multiple purposes, including a trip of a political-diplomatic nature, and another trip with a social significance in which Ibn al-Adim played a clear and tangible role through his participation as a key intermediary in concluding royal marriages, especially between the princes and princesses of the state.Other trips carried a scientific character related to Ibn al-Adims pursuit of knowledge from sheikhs. The researcher here means the sheikhs of his time, which required him to make visits to various capitals, cities, and towns in Egypt, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and the Hijaz. These trips required him to make more than one visit to a single city, sometimes in more than one year. Perhaps this type of travel carried a distinctive luster for Ibn al-Adim, which he became famous for and documented in his two books, The Purpose of Seeking Knowledge in the History of Aleppo, and his other book, The Cream of Aleppo in the History of Aleppo, which is an abbreviation of his first book. The temporal scope of this research was represented by the period of time that Ibn al-Adim lived during his lifetime, while the spatial scope included the geographical area extending between the regions of Iraq and the Levant, especially Aleppo, and the lands of the Arabian Peninsula, the Hijaz, and Egypt, which represented the summary of his various movements between the cities and capitals of these regions. This research includes an introduction, three axes, and a conclusion. The first axis focused on the biography of Ibn al-Adim, mentioning his birth, name, lineage, family, and some of his culture and writings. While the second axis included defining the purposes of the journey of a political-diplomatic nature, which was embodied through the personality of Ibn al-Adim as an ambassador and a statesman distinguished by political acumen. Therefore, this research came to focus on the nature of the journey and its purpose, which was linked to this aspect. As for the third axis, it carried the character of the embassies with their various motives, especially his political embassies and others of a social nature, which is one of the important and rare purposes, especially through historical sources, as this type of journey is distinguished because it reflects aspects of the characteristics of the Arab-Islamic society of the cities that Ibn al-Adim visited, and he recorded features and impressions of them from what he recorded for us in his journeys within this category of travel literature. This axis also included the motives of the journey of Ibn al-Adim, which was linked to the scientific aspect, which is a characteristic that distinguished every Muslim scholar to acquire knowledge from the sheikhs through the student of knowledge visiting different cities and taking different sciences from Its scholars, including Ibn al-Adim, around whom this research revolves, and which the researcher hopes has presented a picture of an important aspect related to the personality and knowledge of Ibn al-Adim, which included his various travels and embassies.