Shihāb al-Dīn Abū 'l-Abbās Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad ‘Abd Allāh al-Fazārī al-Shāfiʿī better known by the epithet al-Qalqashandī (Arabic: شهاب الدين أحمد بن علي بن أحمد القلقشندي; 1355 or 1356 – 1418), was a medieval Egyptian encyclopedist, polymath and mathematician. A native of the Nile Delta, he became a Scribe of the Scroll (Katib al-Darj), or clerk of the Mamluk chancery in Cairo, Egypt. His magnum opus is the voluminous administrative encyclopedia Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshá. Source: Wikipedia (en)