Ibn al-Tiqtaqa

‘Ibn al-Tiqtaqā’, or the son of a chatterbox, was an onomatopoeic nickname for the Iraqi historian Jalāl-ad-Dīn Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Tāji’d-Dīn Abi’l-Hasan ’Ali, the spokesman of the Shi'a community in the Shi’ī holy cities—Hillah, Najaf, and Karbala; in an Iraq that was to remain the stronghold of Shi'ism, until the forcible conversion of Iran by Shah Ismail I Safavi.

According to E.G. Browne's English version Of Mīrzā Muhammad b. ‛Abudi’l-Wahhāb-i—Qazwīni’s edition of ‛Alā-ad-Dīn ‛Ata Malik-i-Juwaynī’s Ta’rīhh-i-Jahān Gushā (London1912, Luzac), p.ix, Ibn al-Tiqtaqā’s name was Safiyu’d-Din Muhammad ibn ‛Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Tabātabā.

Around 1302 AD he wrote a popular compendium of Islamic history called al-Fakhri.^[1][2]

References

1. Geert Jan van Gelder. The Classical Arabic Cannon of Polite (and Impolite) Literature. Cultural Repertoires: Structure, Function, and Dynamics. Peeters Publishing, 2003, pp. 45– 58. ISBN 978-90-429-1299-1
2. al-Ṭiqṭaqā, Al-Fakhrî, Histoire des dynasties Musulmanes depuis la mort de Mahomet jusqu’a la chute du khalifat 'Abâsîde de Bagdâdz (11-656 de l'hégire = 632-1258 de J.-C.) avec des prolégomènes sur les principes du gouvernement, traduit par Émile Amar, Paris, Leroux, 1910. [En ligne] https://archive.org/details/alfakhrhistoir00muamuoft.

• Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. ii, (Leiden 1927, Brill), pp. 423–4.
• Note by Professor H. A. R. Gibb, in Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of History