Yaqut al-Hamawi

Shihab al-Din Abu Abd Allah Yaqut ibn Abd Allah al-Hamawi al-Rumi was born in Anatolia (hence 'al-Rumi') and was captured as a child, becoming a slave in Baghdad. He gained freedom through his learning and traveled extensively throughout the Islamic world, visiting Khorasan, Transoxiana, and the Hejaz. His Mu'jam al-Buldan (Dictionary of Countries) is a 5-volume geographical encyclopedia covering thousands of places in the Islamic world with historical, etymological, and cultural information. He also wrote Mu'jam al-Udaba' (a biographical dictionary of scholars). He died in Aleppo in 626 AH.