ABSTRACT
The family of Ibn al-Athīr was associated with the Zankid dynasty, especially the branch centred on Mosul. His father administered the dīwān, the central bureau in the Mesopotamian town of Jazīrat ibn ‘Umar, the modern Cizre on the Tigris above Mosul, and was a protégé of the influential vizier, Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Isfahānī. The family owned orchards (basātīn) at a place called al-‘Aqīma across the Tigris from Jazīrat Ibn ‘Umar. There was a family house in their village of Qaṣr Ḥarb. In Rajab 579/October-November 1183 his father moved to Mosul.
