Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri

14th-century Egyptian scholar who created the first comprehensive encyclopedia of Islamic knowledge

Decades before the European Renaissance, Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri (1279-1333) completed Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition) - a 31-volume universal encyclopedia that revolutionized knowledge preservation.

This monumental work covered:

Al-Nuwayri's innovation was creating the first cross-referenced knowledge system in Islamic scholarship. He introduced:

• Alphabetical indexes
• Source verification methods
• Comparative analysis of Greek/Eastern theories

His British Library-preserved manuscripts show detailed diagrams of water clocks and surgical tools. Volume 9 contains the earliest known recipe for distilled rosewater, while Volume 28 documents Mamluk military tactics later studied by Ottoman strategists.

Most remarkably, al-Nuwayri included critical commentary on hadith authenticity - a daring move in medieval Islamic academia. This encyclopedic approach influenced Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah and laid groundwork for modern library sciences.