Muhammad was born in
Isfahan, to a
Persian family, in the year 1125, and studied at the
Nizamiyya of Baghdad. He graduated into the bureaucracy, and held jurisdiction over
Basra and
Wasit. He then became a deputy of the vizier
ibn Hubayra. After the death of ibn Hubayra, he went to
Damascus in 1166 CE (562
Islamic Calendar) and entered the service of the
qadi of Damascus, Kamal ad-Din. The qadi presented him to the Zengid
Nur ad-Din, who appointed him a professor in the school he had established there, which then became known as the Imadiyya school in his honour. Nur ad-Din was later appointed to be his Chancellor. After the death of Nur ad-Din in 1174, Imad al-Din was removed from all his bureaucratic duties, and was banished from the palace. He went to live in
Mosul and later entered the service of
Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt during that time. When Saladin took control of Damascus, Saladin's vizier,
al-Qadi al-Fadil, appointed him chancellor, and he also became al-Fadil's deputy. Although Saladin had been unsure of his talent because he was only a scribe, Imad al-Din soon became one of the sultan's favourites. As chancellor he did not have to perform the everyday duties of the chancery scribes, and he had a lot of leisure time in
Egypt. From then on he accompanied Saladin on all his campaigns. After a certain raid, he was chosen to kill one of the prisoners, but the prisoner was a child and was instead exchanged for a Muslim prisoner held by the
Crusaders. Imad al-Din was present at the
Battle of Marj Uyun, the
Battle of Hattin, and the subsequent campaign to expel the Crusaders from the Holy Land. At
Acre, he criticised Saladin for giving away the city's treasure instead of spending it on the reconquest. At
Beirut, he became ill, but was the only scribe capable of writing the terms of surrender. He had recuperated in time to see the aftermath of the
Siege of Jerusalem (1187), where he again criticised Saladin's generosity; he was also disgusted by those in charge of the ransom who took bribes, and the rich Crusader nobles who took their treasures with them rather than ransoming the poor. He was present at Acre again during the
Third Crusade when the Christians
retook the city of Acre, and was among those who fled after the defeat. After Saladin's death in 1193, he began writing his biographies of the sultan. He wrote the
Kitab al-Barq al-Shami, which is largely lost, save for its third and fifth volumes, but was abridged by
al-Bundari and used heavily by the Muslim historians
Ibn al-Athir and
Abu Shama in their own chronicles. He also wrote
al-Fath al-Qussi fi-l-Fath al-Qudsi, which survives. One manuscript of the ''
Bustan al-jami''' attributes it to Imad al-Din, but this seems to be an error, for its information on Saladin does not align too well with that of Imad al-Din's biography. He died on 5 June 1201 in Damascus. ==In popular culture==